In a Different World
by inkheart9459
Summary: Strange dreams have been plaguing Myka and Helena in the aftermath of Syke's attack. Dreams real enough to leave their skin tingling with imaginary fire long after the dreams themselves have faded. But dreams are just dreams, they can't mean anything, right?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: Hello, lovely Bering and Wells fandom. It seems I've finally managed to work up the courage to join your ranks. Anyway, this story is completely canon up through Emily Lake and most of Stand, past that there are bits and pieces from the beginning of season four, but mostly this story skips off in its own direction. I'll be updating once a week or so, bare with me a first the chapters in the beginning are ridiculously short. It happens in most of my writing at the beginning. Also the chapters alternate between HG's and Myka's POV's. I do believe that's everything. So go read. I do so hope you like it. And as always on this site reviews are appreciated.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters or anything related to Warehouse 13. It's a very sad state of affairs.

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Helena sat up gasping. She rubbed the sweat off of her forehead. Another dream. The same dream. How many times did this make now? She had lost count.

She sat up and fumbled for the switch on her bedside lamp. Her breath caught in her throat. She felt as if she were encased in bronze again, arms heavy and not responding to her commands. Something fell off her nightstand, thudding to the floor. She jumped and almost screamed. Finally, her fingers found the switch and the room flooded with light.

Her breathing eased and the heaviness left her limbs. She glanced over and saw what had fallen was the book she had been reading before bed. She put her head in her hands. She hated that darkness affected her this way. Most nights she could tolerate it, tell herself she was being a silly child. The nights when the dreams came were different.

She drew her knees up to her chest. Such dreams had become common since the day Skyes had almost destroyed the Warehouse. It was always the same terrifying thing. Her worst fears lain out before her.

It always started as they were walking into the Ovoid quarantine, the debate over how to defuse the bomb raging. The idea that had saved their lives never came, though. Gandhi's bodhi never seemed to cross anyone's mind. Instead, Helena had walked over to the breaker box on the wall and had started to fiddle with it. She found a flaw in the system that would save everyone…except her.

She felt the fear rise up again and hugged her knees harder to her chest. Even awake the dream was potent. She ran a hand through her bed mussed hair.

In the dream she had closed her eyes for a fraction of a second at the realization that there was no way she could survive and made a decision. Her hand set to work before her eyes had even fully opened. When she turned around, two arching cables in her hand, she looked at Myka, still hunched over the bomb, trying for all she was worth to disable it. She closed her eyes and smiled, touching the two cables together. Part of the barrier created by the Ramati shackle surrounded Myka, Pete, and Artie.

The group had looked up at her, shocked. No one really understood what she had just done.

"Helena, what are you doing?" Myka had asked, shoving Pete and Artie out of the way to look at her.

"It was the only way I could think to save you," she replied.

"But you're out there." Myka's eyes had gone wide.

"It had to be initiated from outside the barrier." She smiled sadly.

Pete and Artie had started to speak, but Helena hadn't heard them. She was solely focused on Myka. "I love you," she mouthed to the woman on the other side of the barrier.

She watched as tears collected in Myka's eyes. A pang went through her at the sight. She hoped Myka would be alright.

A sudden whiff of apples made her smile again. "I smell apples."

And then the dream dissolved into a ball of fire.

She shivered. Dreams weren't supposed to hurt, but her nerves still tingled painfully. She rubbed her hands absently to try and get rid of the pain.

She looked over at the clock. The red numbers stared back at her accusingly. It was nowhere near a decent hour to be awake. It would have to do, though. On nights like tonight she never got back to sleep. Staring at her ceiling for the next few hours did not sound appealing either.

She sighed and levered herself out of bed. If she couldn't sleep then she might as well get ready for the day, perhaps sequester herself in the library until everyone else was awake. She smiled at that. The smell and feel of books always calmed her.

She gathered a change of clothes and her toiletries and stepped out into the hallway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **So I would be a liar if I said that I didn't squeal in a very undignified manner every time I got a notification of a review or a follow for this story. A liar and a scoundrel and perhaps a cheat. So thank you guys who reviewed and followed you gave me something to be happy about on this week where I have three exams and a paper due. I hope you'll continue to read and like this story. Oh, and surprise second update this week. Mainly because I finally did the math and figured out that I can post two chapters a week at least while they're ridiculously short towards the beginning and still have a buffer until summer comes. So woo!

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Chapter Two

Myka sat bolt upright, her fists and legs tangled in the sheets. She fought to free herself from her binds. She wished that such things wouldn't happen while she slept, that the sheets would just stay in perfect order no matter how she moved, but the world never did quite work how her orderly mind wanted.

Not that her mind was all that orderly at the moment, or had been since Skyes had almost taken down the Warehouse. Her dreams had been a reflection of that. She sighed and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to get rid of the lingering feel of dream fire.

If she dreamed of herself burning with the Warehouse one more time, she might truly loose all of the order in her mind. But in the dream it had all been worth it, she had saved Helena.

And Artie and Pete, too, she reminded herself. But somehow, even though she loved them both like family, they weren't quite as important as Helena. Myka shook her head. It wasn't important. It was just a dream after all.

A dream that repeatedly kept her up at night.

She looked over at the clocked. 4 am. Close enough to her normal wakeup call at 5:30 it wasn't really worth trying to go back to sleep. She was thankful for that. She could justify getting up instead of trying to force herself back to sleep because that was the right thing to do.

She yawned and got up out of bed, stretching as she walked across the room to her dresser. A crisp blouse and a pair of slacks later, she headed out the door.

And right into someone else.

Myka fell back into her room with an, "Oomph."

"Oh darling I'm so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going. I didn't think anyone else would be up at this hour," said a lovely British accent from the hall.

Myka looked up into dark eyes, the light from the lamp in her room not quite enough to light up Helena's eyes enough to see where her irises ended and her pupils began. She felt like she was falling into them.

"Are you alright, Myka?" Helena walked into her room and knelt beside her.

Myka snapped out of her stupor. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. I guess I'm not as awake as I thought."

"At four in the morning I don't suppose you would be."

Myka shrugged.

"Why are you up, anyway?"

"Just woke up and knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. Why are you up, Helena? Usually we have to drag you out of bed."

The corners of Helena's mouth ghosted up. "Yes, well I did always prefer the night to the morning, but tonight, however, the sandman had other plans. Ones involving, well I wouldn't quite call it a nightmare, but something of the sort."

"Oh," Myka said. She paused a minute considering, before adding, "Me too."

HG lowered herself into a sitting position. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Myka glanced over at Helena and the feeling from the dream right before the bomb blew up overwhelming her. Acceptance that she was going to die, sadness that this would cause Helena even more pain in her already painful life, love for the woman standing behind the barrier.

The last feeling always struck her like a bag of bricks. How could she be in love with Helena? She was another woman, a woman that had betrayed her, and even though Myka had forgiven Helena, the feelings of hurt were still deep with her, healing as the days past, but very slowly. Yet how couldn't she be in love with her? This woman knew her better than everyone else, willing to sacrifice her life to protect the world even after it had caused her so much pain.

"It was about the day Skyes almost blew up the Warehouse…except in my dreams he succeeded. We didn't find Gandhi's bodhi. We couldn't find any way to stop it. But I found a way to save you…and Artie and Pete. I rerouted part of the barrier that the Ramati shackle formed and surround you-you guys with it. I don't know how I did it, but I did. And then you realized what I had done, and you just gave me this pained look, like why would I do that, and then everything just turns to fire." Myka sucked in a breath after the rush of words. Only after a few seconds did she realize that she had stopped adding Artie and Pete to the story, and had only mentioned Helena. She hoped Helena didn't notice.

Helena just looked at her like she had seen a ghost. She swallowed with a visible effort. "Myka, I've been having the same dream, except it is I who save you."

Myka scrunched her eyebrows. "Surely, it's just a coincidence."

Helena looked at her skeptically. "We work in the Warehouse, Myka. Things are rarely a coincidence here."

"They're just dreams, Helena."

"Perhaps. Perhaps they are just a reaction to the stress and realization just how fragile everything is, but I think you and I both can deal quite well with stress and already knew just how fragile things can be. Perhaps we're having nearly identical dreams because we are so alike in spirit. Perhaps they keep us up at night just because we're afraid. But, Myka, that's a lot of perhaps-es for the Warehouse."

She shook her head, throwing some of her hair into her face. "It's nothing, I'm sure of it."

Helena gently tucked a strand of Myka's hair back into place. "And a mirror is just a mirror here in Univille, South Dakota."

Myka quickly stood, scrabbling back over to her bed. "You know what maybe I should go back to bed. I think I'm still a little tired. Goodnight, Helena."

"Goodnight, darling."

Helena stood with a hint of a smile on her face watching the other woman out of the corner of her eye as she walked out of the room and made her way downstairs to the library. She curled up on the couch, grabbing the first book nearest to her. The discussion wasn't over. She just had to wait for Myka to come to her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Welcome to your regularly scheduled weekly update and another chapter from Myka's POV. I swear we'll get back to Helena's POV next chapter. But for now there's much more happening in Myka-land. Also it just sort of happened it this way sort of on accident…uh pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain? Anyway, enjoy the next chapter. And since this one is another extremely short one, you'll be seeing me again this week, probably around Wednesday. As always I'm ever so greatful for the reviews and favorites. AWAY!

Chapter 3

Myka stood in her room as the door closed behind Helena. She stared at the mussed bedspread blankly, chewing her lip. Surely Helena was just overreacting. Surely. A shiver made its way up her body, goosebumps covering the flesh exposed to the air.

But what if it was her who was under reacting? Helena was right. They did work for the Warehouse and nothing was ever what it seemed at face value. Could Helena be right?

No. It she couldn't be.

She started to pace the room, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung on the back of her door. Her hair hung limply around her face. Dark circles were under her eyes. She looked tired, worn, and defeated. Not like someone who had come through an almost literal trial by fire and lived. She scowled. What was she doing wrong?

She sighed. Whatever it was she needed to figure it out soon, otherwise she might look like a dead woman walking soon. Myka continued pacing the short length of the room, growing more and more restless. There was no way she could carry through with going back to sleep. Not that she had really thought she could in the first place. Then why exactly had she told Helena that? Her brow knit together. She probably shouldn't think about that.

Still, she stopped pacing and looked to toward the room door despite herself. She walked over and opened the door carefully, making as little noise as possible. She stepped out into the hallway and shut her door behind her again.

Myka looked down the stairs towards the first floor. If she knew Helena she would be in the library reading at this hour. She could go there, that would stop the pacing alone in her room. Surely that was better.

No. She told herself. She would just go back into her room and spend and nice morning there.

Doing what? It wasn't like her room held much entertainment beyond sleeping. Sure, she had her well worn copy of _War of the Worlds _on her nightstand, but for once she wasn't much for an HG Wells book this morning. She could go make herself breakfast. But then again Leena would be up in a few hours anyway to cook. TV was too loud for this time of night, and wasn't really her thing anyway.

Myka tried to deny the inevitable. It was either go down to the library and confront Helena, and maybe, if she was lucky be able to just slip by her and curl up with a nice book, maybe Dickens this morning, or sit in her room and stare at the walls until everyone else woke up.

Staring at the walls it was. She walked into her room and flopped down on her bed. Funny how she had gotten up earlier to avoid this and yet here she was. Thoughts swirled around in her mind, what she had to do at the warehouse today, more inventory of course; that she had better call her parents soon or they would think her dead, or at least her mom would start to worry; the love she felt for Helena. No, no not that last one. She stopped in mid-thought. She wouldn't think about that right now, maybe ever.

She started to count the bumps on the ceiling instead. After a thousand the bumps started to blend together and she lost count. Myka groaned in frustration. This was ridiculous. What was she even doing right now?

She forced herself out of bed and walked to her door again, but stopped with her hand on the handle. Was this really a good idea? What were the pros and cons? She was finally awake enough that her analytical side had started to fully function. Pros, she actually got out of her room, she would sort out this who crazy dream thing with Helena, and perhaps she could make her see sense, if she couldn't she could help Helena come up with some sort of plan to avoid what their dreams laid out to make Helena feel better, even if she didn't believe it, and afterward there could be a nice cup of coffee and books and maybe she could manage to scoot over nonchalantly and…No. She was not going to do that. Coffee and books were all she needed.

Cons, she might actually have to face her feelings about Helena, and there was no way she would ever be ready for that.

She was out the door before she had even finished the last thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **It's Wednesday. Which I almost forgot. Days sort of get screwed up while in school. Anyway, here's the next chapter, and in HG's POV as promised. Read, enjoy, review if you're so inclined.

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Chapter 4

She heard Myka padding down the stairs quietly and smiled. That hadn't taken quite as long as she had thought. A head full of curly hair peeked around the corner at Helena.

"Myka, darling, come in. It seems Leena has been about cleaning again. I don't know what happened to the novel you were in the middle of; perhaps it's on the shelves."

Oh, it was on the shelves alright, but never where Myka would find it, stuck back behind books on the top shelf she was sure hadn't been moved in the greater part of ten years. Myka would have to talk to her instead of diving into a book and avoiding her. Helena hid her grin behind the book she had picked at random from the shelf. Not her normal fare, but she wasn't much focused on it anyway. Amazing how vapid some literature had become over the last century. Romance _novel_ indeed.

"Oh that's fine," Myka said sitting in the couch across from Helena after a seconds hesitation. "I think today I'm more in a Dickens mood anyway. Today isn't a day for Bram Stoker."

Helena inclined her head. That it wasn't. Still, that foiled her first plan, but she was ever the one for back ups.

Myka grabbed the nearest Charles Dickens book off the table between them, _Great Expectations_, and started reading. Helena felt her nose crinkling gently. Definitely not Dickens' best work, but it was markedly better than the drivel she had in her hands.

Helena settled back into her book to wait. Myka had come to her. The first phase of the game was over, now it was time for the end game. Chaturanga would say it wasn't her strongest part of the game, but she had changed much since she was under his tutelage. She had set her trap, now all there was to do was wait. She wasn't nearly as impulsive as she had been back in her first days at the Warehouse. Well, sometimes anyway.

They sat reading in companionable silence for a few minutes. It was quite obvious that Myka was only feigning the act of reading and not really taking anything in. Her eyes stared blankly at the page, not moving.

Helena turned a page in her book.

"Alright, so what happens if the dreams do mean something? What is there that we can do? I mean they're dreams Helena. I've heard of dream symbols and interpretation, but this is taking it a little far."

Checkmate. Helena bit the inside of her lip to keep her face straight. "Well, I suppose since we do work for the Warehouse, it would be reasonable to see if any of the artifacts we have on hand could make such dreams reality. Perhaps tell Leena, she does seem to have a better grip on the ephemeral than the rest of us. Ask Pete if he's getting any bad vibes. What would you suggest our plan of action would be, Myka? Obviously if there is a way to preempt anything we want to take it. I'm not fond of the thought of the Warehouse blowing up."

"No, neither am I." Myka sighed. "I'd do just what you said, Helena."

"Good." Helena turned back to her book.

She felt Myka staring at her for a few minutes more.

"Helena…" she paused a few minutes more before going on, biting her lip so hard it looked painful. "What if the dreams after just…well what if they are dreams and all they mean is that…that we care for each other and the whole episode with Skyes just has us worried that we're going to lose each other now that everything is finally back to normal again?"

Helena's eyebrows shot up. She hadn't thought Myka was ready for that, just yet. It seemed beginning of this next game went to Myka.

"Well, I would say that is plausible." She looked up at Myka and put down her book, giving the younger woman her full attention. "And if that is all the dreams are?"

Myka swallowed. "I don't know. I just…it was just a thought."

Helena got up at circle the table and sat beside Myka on the couch. She placed her hand gently on Myka's. She felt the other woman's hand tense below her for a second before relaxing again.

"And what if it's a correct thought."

Myka's other hand went to her hair, twirling a stray curl around her finger. "I-I-I don't know." She pulled her hand out from under Helena's. "I think I need some more time to think about that."

Helena stood up and returned to her chair. "That could be arranged."

Myka glanced up at her gratefully. She snatched up her book and fell into reading it, this time her eyes actually moved across the page.

Helena sighed quietly. She had been right; Myka wasn't quite ready to play the game she so desperately wanted. But that was ok for now. She had spent one hundred years in bronze. She knew how to wait. She picked up her book again, but didn't remember a word she had read an hour later.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Aw, you guys are too kind with the reviews. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review this story. It means quite a lot to me. Now, to your regularly scheduled update. I swear the chapters do get bigger. I just forgot exactly how many chapters were this short… In the mean time, read, review, enjoy, perform a song and dance if you so desire.

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Chapter Five

Day finally dawned on the B&B. Myka set the book she was reading down when she heard Leena shuffling around in the kitchen. She got up and set out for the other room. Maybe cooking and cleaning would settle her mind again. Dickens had been a temporary relief, but as the pages wore on, her thoughts had started to seep in again.

"Good morning Leena." Myka smiled at the innkeeper.

"Morning Myka." She glanced up and down, seeing something around Myka that Myka couldn't.

Leena was reading her aura again. Myka never knew whether or not to react to such things as invasion of privacy or not. Seeing as Leena always meant good by it, probably not.

"Are you ok, Myka? You're up early, even for you." Leena asked.

"Fine, just a bad dream that's all. It's no big deal. Do you need any help getting breakfast ready?" She quickly changed the topic.

"Sure. You make the pancakes; I'll start the bacon and eggs?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Myka set to work making pancakes, grabbing out a bag of chocolate chips for Pete and Claudia's helping. Instead of freeing her mind from thoughts, cooking left even more room in her mind for thoughts of her earlier conversation to swirl around, the same thoughts spinning round and round like a dog chasing its tail.

It was almost a blessing when Artie came in and said, "Where are Pete, Helena, Claudia, and Steve? I have pings. For all of us."

* * *

Artie gathered everyone around the table while Leena finished up breakfast. Myka had managed to snag the chair between Jinx and Pete, Claudia's usual seat. The girl had shrugged when she saw the change and flopped down in the chair between Steve and Helena. Myka sighed quietly, glad that Claudia had enough sense not to make a big deal out of it. That was the last thing she needed today.

"So what's up Artie? Please tell me we're going after Ben and Jerry's original ice cream scoop or something," Pete said.

Artie rolled his eyes. "Not quite. Pete you and I will be going to London. A series of strange murders have occurred and one man has solved them all."

"Well what's so strange about that? London's got themselves a great detective. I'm sure they could use one." Pete shrugged.

"Well, it might have something to do with the fact that the person solving the murders has absolutely no experience in law enforcement, whatsoever," Artie snapped. "And all the murders center around one influential gentleman's club."

"What club?" Helena asked.

"The Beefsteak Club."

Helena snorted. "Prats probably deserve it."

Artie raised a bushy eyebrow.

"What? I'm not so fond of gentleman's clubs. I think we all know how I felt about chauvinism in my own time. The gentlemen of that particular establishment were, to put it lightly, worse than most."

"Yes, well, past grudges aside, an artifact is on the loose there and Pete and I are going to get it."

He slapped a folder in front of the other agent.

Myka swallowed. If Pete was going with Artie, and Artie said that he had missions for _all_ of them, then who was she going on a mission with. Steve and Claudia were still possibilities. She closed her eyes and sent a prayer to whoever might be listening that that would be the case.

"Claudia and Steve you're going to Hawaii."

The pair high fived.

"Yes! We get the awesome mission!" Claudia yelled.

"Claudia, if you actually want to figure out what you're going to be doing on this mission besides running around in a bikini, you might want to pay attention." Artie scowled.

Claudia looked slightly chastened, but was still bouncing in her seat.

Artie went on. "It seems that the volcano Kilauea in Hawaii has sudden gone dormant and our sensors think something of the artifact sort is behind it. Snag, bag it, tag it, you know the drill." Artie handed a file to Steve.

Claudia shot out of the room. "Going to pack bye!"

Myka felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Of course this would happen.

"And Myka and HG, you both are going to Stanford. A series of students have disappeared there under mysterious circumstances."

He handed Myka their file.

"Same drill." Artie paused for a second. "What are you waiting for, go!"

Helena arched a delicate eyebrow back at Artie. "Can it not wait until at least after breakfast? I would hate to see all of Leena's and Myka's work go to waste."

Artie shot her a glare. "Go."

Myka got up out of her chair and practically ran for her room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Wednesday already. Every update gets me closer to spring break. You guys have no idea how excited I am about that. I've been dying to continue writing on this story, but when you take three science classes and a math class in one semester, there really is no time to write. Or breathe. Just another day in college. Anyway, enjoy this update, review if you're so inclined…I'm disappointed no one took me up on the song and dance offer from last time.

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Helena followed Myka out of the room, albeit at a much slower pace. The woman could really move if she wanted to. She bit the inside of her lip. This mission wasn't exactly going to give Myka the space she needed to think.

Helena considered for a moment.

Perhaps that wasn't such a bad idea. Myka did have a habit of over thinking things.

But then again with the way that Myka had practically sprinted out of the room maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Her mind kept going back and forth between the pros and cons.

She cursed herself for telling Myka earlier of her dream. That's what had brought all of this awkwardness to a head. She would have much rather had everything as it had been before. There was no chance of anything…more, but at least Myka didn't cringe and run from the idea of spending a few days on a mission with her.

She sighed and walked into her own room to pack. The book she had knocked off this morning still lay on the floor, spine bent at an awkward angle. She ran a hand through her hair and rolled her eyes. Picking it up and setting it back on the night stand, she traced her finger over the gold lettering on the front. A catch 22 this definitely was.

She shoved what she needed into a carry on sized bag walked to Myka's door, pausing outside. Should she really knock or should she just wait for Myka downstairs? She hesitantly raised her hand to the door and knocked lightly.

"I'll be down in a second Helena. Go grab breakfast," came Myka's voice from inside her room.

"Do you want me to grab you anything before Pete eats it all?" she returned.

"No, I'm fine. I'll just grab something at the airport later."

Ugh, airport food. Helena was extremely glad that had not had to put up with such vile fare for most of her lifetime. How Myka stood it, she would never know. She would grab a muffin or something for Myka, a chocolate chip one, if there were any left. They were, after all, her favorite. Myka couldn't say no to one, much like Twizzlers.

A smile graced Helena's face. For a woman who didn't eat sugar, Myka did have quite the sweet tooth. She walked down the stairs, still smiling.

Pete was practically shoving food into his face when Helena walked back into the dining room. Helena sat down and snatched the last chocolate chip muffin from the basket in the middle of the table. She grabbed a napkin and wrapped the baked good in it and slipped it into the top of her bag.

"Hey, if you aren't going to eat it now give it to me," Pete said around a mouthful of pancakes.

"Pete, I do believe you have more than enough on your plate, metaphorically and quite literally. Besides, it's for Myka, not me. You know she'll want to leave as soon as she gets down here and won't stop to eat."

Pete nodded. "True." Then went back to eating, trying to eat as much as he could before Artie reappeared to whisk him away to London.

Helena put a pancake on her plate and picked at it. She wasn't quite hungry herself. Her stomach was unsettled for some reason. If she didn't eat, though, there was airport food in her future. She shivered and managed to down a mouthful of pancake.

After a few more mouthfuls, she looked up from her plate and over at Pete again. "Pete…do you have any vibes right now?"

Pete cocked his head. "No, why?"

"I don't know. I just…" She shook her head. "Never mind."

Pete shrugged.

Artie walked in. "Pete have you even packed yet?" A scowl was firmly fixed on the greying man's face.

Pete held up a bag. "Always keep a bagged packed just for situations like this."

"What situations, where food is at risk of not being eaten?" Claudia asked walking in the room, grabbing a muffin and a pancake, rolling the pancake and taking a bite.

"A growing boy has got to eat," Pete replied rubbing his stomach.

"I'm afraid, Pete, my man, that the only way you're going to be growing if you keep eating like that is out." She mimed a large gut.

"Hey! I work out!"

"It's a miracle we ever get any work done around here. Claudia, go find Steve and go. Pete, put the fork down and let us finally be on our way. And you," Artie turned towards Helena. "Why aren't you gone yet?"

"My fault Artie. I took a little too long packing." Myka said as she rushed into the room.

Artie shot a glare at Myka, but it wasn't quite as cutting as the one he had directed at HG.

"Fine, fine, just leave now if at all possible."

"Righty-ho then," Helena said and walked toward the front door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Row, row, row the update gently onto the internet. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, I hope you guys enjoy. So it's not 80s or 90s girl bands, they didn't quite fit what I was going for there. However, tomorrow will be the epitome of a Manic Monday. Though, replace kissing Valentino with HG Wells and it's much more accurate. Anyway, read review, play a game of tic tac toe, enjoy.

* * *

Myka shot out of the dining room and to her room. Ok, so her hope that she wasn't going to be the one assigned to go on a mission with Helena hadn't been granted. That was fine. Fine. She would make it fine. She could do it. She rested her head on her closed bedroom door.

She hoped anyway.

She wandered about her room aimlessly for a few minutes. She was supposed to be packing. She knew that, but she just couldn't care about that right now. She was going to be stuck with Helena for at least a day, more if this mission didn't sort itself out right away. And knowing Artie he would only give them clearance for enough money for one hotel room since it was just her and Helena. Oh god, what was she going to do? It was just going to be one long awkward moment.

No. No it wouldn't. Myka could deal with all of this. She could put all her confusion and feelings aside for a few days. She would just sort them out later. It would all be ok.

She twirled a curl around her finger and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Slowly she cleared her mind, thoughts sorting themselves into small little boxes to be dealt with later. Myka felt a weight starting to lift off her shoulders.

A knock sounded at the door and snapped her out of it; slamming the weight right back down on her shoulders and letting the boxes of thoughts tumble over and send their contents flying. She had to swallow a few times before she could speak.

"I'll be down in a second, Helena. Go grab breakfast."

"Do you want me to grab anything before Pete eats it all?" Helena's voice was muffled by the door, but Myka could still clearly hear the bone melting accent the woman had.

No. No her mind wouldn't go there.

"No, I'm fine. I'll just grab something at the airport later."

She could practically feel Helena cringe at that. The woman detested airport food. Myka heard the other woman's footsteps on the stairs a few seconds later. Myka sighed loudly. A little bit of the fog in her mind faded now that Helena wasn't so near.

Myka grabbed her travel bag from under her bed and actually set to packing. Blouses, pants, and socks were shoved carelessly into the little black case, nothing at all like Myka normally packed, neat, orderly, and tidy. Right now she didn't have the energy or the time. She zipped up her bag a few minutes later and hoped that she didn't forget anything. State of mind she was in, she would be lucky if she remember to pack underwear.

She stopped herself on the way to the door. She could do this. She had done this. She had spent years hiding her feelings and pretending like nothing was wrong. This was no different. She felt her face slipping into the calm mask. It felt odd on her face now. It had been so long since she had had to wear it last. Even stranger to be wearing it in the B&B. Bering and Sons was a more familiar setting for this expression. Her childhood home had few fond memories, none of them including her father.

Still, as much as she hated wearing this expression, it worked to calm her thoughts. Her shoulders relaxed, a zing of pain shooting through Myka. She had tensed up without realizing it and now her muscles were reading her the riot act. At this rate the plane ride was going to suck. She'd have stiff muscles before she ever set foot on the tarmac.

Myka continued out her door and down into the dining room. Artie was already shouting at everyone to leave. She caught the last bit of what he said as she walked in.

"And you. Why aren't you gone yet?" He barked at Helena.

"My fault, Artie. I took a little too long packing."

He couldn't be too mad. Myka was usually the first one ready when it came to packing for missions. Artie's glare softened, but only fractionally.

"Fine, fine just leave now if at all possible."

Myka had already started walking when Helena said, "Righty-ho then."

She felt her mask of calm slipping at bit. She had always found it so…charming when Helena used that phrase. She swallowed hard. Nope. Not going there.

She felt Helena following her out to the SUV. Myka slipped into the driver's seat, jammed the keys in the ignition, and threw her bag into the back seat. Helena got in on the passenger's side a second later. Myka started the vehicle and pointed them toward the airport.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Ah, last update before spring break. It's finally almost here. Just one last calc 2 exam to go. *cringes* Also, when they say reality is stranger than fiction, it's pretty much true. The poet that Helena sees in the airport is actually based off a woman I saw in an airport once. That flight was full of interesting people actually… Anyway, read, review enjoy, share a ridiculous airport story if you have any inclination.

* * *

The expression Myka wore was almost frighteningly serene. Helena wasn't sure what exactly had happened to the younger woman while she had been packing, but she was sure it hadn't exactly been good. Had she made her decision already about what was going on between the two of them? Did she not want to be together, or even friends anymore?

She snuck another glance at the agent as she turned them onto the highway. Myka was completely focused on the task at hand, eyes fixed ahead, posture straight, mouth set in something between and smile and frown. Helena didn't like it at all. She hated not knowing. But she did have something that perhaps could fix the situation.

When the SUV was on the highway, straight road continuing endlessly in front of them, Helena dug in her bag finding the muffin she had swiped earlier. She brought it out and unwrapped it, reaching over to tap Myka.

"I grabbed you a muffin. I practically had to pry Pete off of it. I figured one of Leena's muffins was better than anything you could get at the airport."

Myka glanced over at her. Helena saw her swallow and her fingers start to twitch on the steering wheel.

Myka reached out with on hand and grabbed the muffin. "Thanks," she said quietly.

Helena smiled. "You're welcome."

Myka nibbled on the muffin. Her expression was still set in that ridiculously look, but now Helena saw it was just a front. A very fragile one at that if the offer of a muffin could shake it.

Helena breathed a little easier. It was just something Myka was doing to get her through the mission. She was just blocking out the feelings to sort out later. She wasn't shutting Helena out. If she had believed in God she would've been thanking him.

With that out of the way Helena settled in for the long car ride.

* * *

They pulled into the long term parking lot of Rapid City Regional Airport an hour and a half later. Myka switched off the engine and sat motionless for a few seconds. Helena dared not move. She didn't want to disturb whatever thoughts were running through the agents head.

A second later Myka shook her head. "Sorry, I guess the extremely early morning is catching up to me." She smiled over at Helena, but her heart wasn't in it. A pity, Myka's real smile took Helena's breath away.

"Understandable," Helena replied, nodding. She thought anything more than that might break the bubble of peace that Myka had assembled for herself. As much as Helena wanted Myka to figure out her feelings, a mission was no time to be scattered brained. The last thing she wanted was for Myka to get hurt.

"Shall we?" she asked after another few seconds of sitting there.

"Sure." Myka hopped out of the car, locking it as Helena closed her door.

Helena hiked her bag high up on her shoulder and walked into the terminal. Myka walked over to the electronic ticket counter and printed out both of their tickets. Helena still hadn't quite gotten the handle on that particular machine. Computers were one thing, ticket machines were quite another. One had to know airport codes to get the blasted machine to work, not exactly her area of expertise. She really did need to get on that. Perhaps Myka would teach her…if this tension between them ever dissolved.

Tickets in hand they both walked towards security. Helena walked through the line, taking off her shoes and jacket as instructed. A silly precaution she thought. If she really wanted to get through security with some kind of weapon she could easily see three ways they weren't checking. Then again she supposed most terrorist weren't of her intelligence. . She shrugged. It wasn't as if it mattered really. As a Warehouse agent she could fly with her Tesla anyway.

Once through security the pair of them settled into a couple of sparsely padded chairs outside of the gate. Myka was lost in her own thoughts again, so Helena took to people watching. At the next gate their sat an older woman, her hair dyed neon pink, green, and blue. And Helena had thought she had seen it all. She had apparently been wrong on that account.

The woman was on the phone. Helena could hear snatches of the conversation. Something to do with a poetry reading in Ireland. Yes, that would explain much. Even the poets in Helena's own time had been a little stranger than normal.

Her eyes roamed on, taking in an old man asleep two gates down, a young woman with a baby stroller in front of her, Helena had to swallow past a lump at the sight. She missed Christina dearly. Behind them was a couple holding hands.

Helena sighed. "Myka." She startled herself. She hadn't meant to say her name aloud.

"What Helena?" the other woman asked, hearing her name even though Helena hadn't said it loudly.

"Uh, nothing, excuse me. I hadn't realized I said that out loud. Sorry."

Myka stared at her for a few seconds before nodding. "Okay."

Helena closed her eyes. It looked like this wasn't going to be an easy mission for either of them. For both their sakes she hoped this was an easy snag. Though, knowing the general nature of artifacts, that was going to be anything but the case. Helena ran her hand through her hair.

Bollocks.

The plane boarded a few minutes later. Despite everything a thrill ran through Helena. She did so love flying. The fact that a machine could achieve the same thing as a bird was fascinating. She almost wished she had stayed unbronzed to see the technology first come about. It sounded like such an exciting time. She supposed if she wanted she could always go back with her time machine and see, but that seemed a little gratuitous.

She settled into her seat beside Myka. There weren't many other people on the plane. It seemed San Francisco was not a popular destination for the people of South Dakota.

Myka tensed beside her every time she shifted. Helena sighed. It seemed like this was going to be a very long two hour flight. She reached into her bag and brought out the ridiculous romance novel she had been reading back and the B&B and settled in. If only things worked like they did in romance novels…


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **I thought spring break was gratifying in high school, college takes it to a whole 'nother level. Now I can write to my heart's desire hehe. Anyway, Sunday=regular update. Thank you so much to those who have been reviewing consistently, you guys are amazingly awesome. I'm always excited to know what you guys think of the new chapters. Anyone else who reviews even just once is awesome as well. So, read, review, hopefully enjoy, I don't want to tell you how to live your life or anything.

* * *

Myka felt herself growing tired of holding up this façade already. The muscles in her back and shoulders may have relaxed, but everything else about her now was even tenser than before. Sitting beside Helena on the airplane was torture. She was aware of every breath that the woman took, every move that she made. She tried to ignore them, to focus on something else, anything else, but she couldn't.

God, she wished she was back in the car driving. She had lost herself in the act of guiding the car down the road, not even her thoughts had touched her. Until Helena had offered her that muffin anyway. Chocolate chip. The woman knew her too well.

It had opened up just a little crack in the calm. Just a little tiny one. Myka hadn't thought anything of it. But even the most catastrophic failures had to start somewhere, a mark, a tiny crack, somewhere deep, somewhere hidden, until they could grow.

She heard the captain come over the intercom, but only registered the fact that he said they were about half an hour out from landing. A half an hour. She could hold out for another half an hour. She had to.

Beside her Helena turned another page in the book she had brought to read. The sound of crackling paper went through Myka like a shot.

She swallowed hard and began counting down the seconds.

* * *

When the wheels hit the tarmac she had never been happier to be back on solid ground in her life. She bolted off the plane, hoping Helena was at least near enough to see where she was going. She did not want to have to come back for the other agent. She might just break in half from the tension if that happened.

Somehow she ended up with the keys to a rental car in her hand, her bag on her shoulder, out in the parking lot, but she had no memory of how she had gotten there. Helena was beside her now, so very close. She could feel the warmth radiating off the author. She bit her lip and pretended that it didn't feel wonderful.

They both slipped into the front seat of Mini Cooper. Myka rolled her eyes. Sometimes travelling last second for Warehouse mission worked out smoothly and everything went according to plan. Sometimes, they ended up with cars that were more like toys than cars, or something else not overtly disastrous, but annoying none the less.

She noted the smile on Helena's face. She probably thought the car was cute. Cute was not going to save them if they got chased by some artifact wielding lunatic, but she felt the corners of her mouth creeping up anyway.

Myka swallowed the feeling of happiness creeping up within her. No. No. She couldn't have this now. But the last of her mask was almost gone. She was barely hanging on. And they had just gotten to San Francisco. They still had to drive to the hotel, go to Stanford, investigate, find the artifact, snag it, bag it, tag it, and make it back to the Warehouse. She wasn't going to last that long. What was she going to do?

She bit her lip. Her hand twitched on the steering wheel, wanting desperately to tangle itself in her curls. She wished that she wasn't driving right now. She laughed at that thought. She had wanted nothing more than to be driving on the plane, but now she needed to be anywhere but behind the wheel, preferably walking outside somewhere letting the wind blow away her thoughts, talking to the trees, telling them things that no one else would ever hear. But that wasn't where she was now. She slammed on the brake to avoid some idiot who had pulled across three lanes of traffic to get into the exit lane.

She felt dangerous being out on the road in this state, but there was no other choice. Helena driving was even worse than she was even this emotionally compromised. She bit down harder on her lip and drove on towards Stanford.

* * *

She managed to get them to their hotel in one piece despite the tiny car and her emotional state. Myka felt like just collapsing with her head against the steering wheel, but she really didn't want Helena to know anything was wrong. …Well, more than she already did anyway.

The agent levered herself out of the car, grabbing her stuff from the back quickly. She headed into the hotel, Helena following behind her. The desk clerk looked up at her with a bored expression. She smiled as much as she could. Judging from the new expression on the desk clerk's face it hadn't gone well. Her hand twirled a curl around her finger.

"Hi, there should be a reservation under Fredric."

The clerk type a keystrokes into the computer and nodded. "One room, two full sized beds?"

Myka almost cursed. She had been right about Artie being too cheap to reserve two rooms for her and Helena. This _so_ was not helping.

"Yes, that's right." This time she didn't try for a smile. She had a feeling it would send the clerk running.

The clerk gave her two key cards and then they were on their way to their room. Myka handed Helena one of the key cards as they walked. The other woman took the card from her hand, fingertips brushing hers ever so gently. It felt as if a bolt of lightning had traveled up her arm, leaving it hot and tingly. She tried to rub away the feeling discreetly.

They stopped in front of the room number that their key cards bore. Myka unlocked the door quickly, walked into the room, threw her stuff on the bed closest to the door and immediately headed for the bathroom. It was the only place she could be alone right now and that was desperately what she needed.

"I'm just going to freshen up before we head out to Stanford," she told Helena.

The other woman nodded, sitting gracefully on the other bed.

She shut the bathroom door firmly behind her, throwing the lock, before collapsing on the toilet with her head in her hands.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** Whoops, this is a little late. I plead the 5th? I swear this chapter will make up for it. It's pretty much the one you've all be waiting for. *insert normal spiel about reviews here* enjoy.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Myka hadn't reemerged from the bathroom. There hadn't even been the sound of running water. Helena was getting worried. Was Myka really ok?

Helena walked over to the door. She hesitated. She might make it worse. But if Myka's safety was in question did it matter? She could always deal with the consequences later.

She raised her hand to the door and knocked. "Myka, are you quite alright?"

She heard scrambling from behind the door. "Uh, yeah I'm fine. I just-I just…sorry."

Helena heard the faucet turn on and some splashing. She backed away from the door, satisfied that at least for now, Myka was ok. Physically, perhaps not mentally, not yet. She bit the inside of her lip, should they really be going to Stanford today?

Myka emerged from the bathroom a second later. Helena watched after her walk over to her bed and start to open her bag. The zipper snagged on something and Myka tugged. The zipper didn't budge. She pulled it back and tried again, but no luck. Helena stepped forward.

"Let me help."

"No it's fine. I've got it." Myka tugged harder, again and again until the zipper came off in her hand.

Helena could see clearly the instant when Myka just broke, shattered, fell to pieces. She could almost see the cracks travel across the agent's face. The façade she had been so valiantly wearing could not hold out anymore. Myka's face collapsed in on itself and tears started to flow. She sunk to the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs.

Helena stood frozen just outside the bathroom door. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what she _could_ do. Her legs started moving of their own accord. In less than a second she was knelt by Myka's side. She wrapped the sobbing woman in her arms and just held on.

She felt useless. Even more useless than she had after Christina had been murdered. At least then she had a plan, something to act on. Her time machine had failed, but then she had known enough to track the men down and…deal with them.

Now, what could she do? She couldn't fix this. She could set bone, she could staunch bleeding, but this was a different kind of pain. One she couldn't fix. One she was still trying to work out for herself.

"Myka…" she trailed off not knowing what else to say. She felt tears gathering in her own eyes.

"Helena, I can't…I just can't. I-These feelings for you. I don't even know. I just kept telling myself that you were a friend, a true friend in every sense of the word, the one person who knew me better than I knew myself. But after Skyes's attack on the Warehouse everything changed. Those stupid dreams kept telling me that it was more than just friendship that I felt for you and I didn't want to listen to it even then. Then you just had to go and tell me you were having the same dream and I when you told me I could see it in your eyes that you loved me too, and I just didn't know what to do after that. It wasn't one sided anymore. If it was one sided I could keep on denying everything to myself. But there was everything I ever wanted to see in a lovers eyes in yours. And then I couldn't deny myself anymore, and I didn't know what to do because you're a woman and I know I shouldn't really care because love is love and whatever, but I just- God damn it, I don't like women. I've never been with a woman. I've never had the inclination to be with one.

"But…then there's you Helena. And now I just don't even know what to think anymore other than I love you. You know what, that's the scariest thing. I love you, and now I'm so scared of losing you I just don't even want to move. I'm questioning everything I've ever known about myself, I just don't know who I am really, but the scariest thing still is the thought of ever losing you. And I've lost you before, you've betrayed me, who's to say that won't happen again? How can I ever subject myself to those risks? If you do leave, or get killed, or suddenly get transported to 1559 because that's what some artifact does, I'll fall apart. I'm already falling apart. And it's all because of you. It's all because I'm scared of what will happen if we do get together. I'm scared I'll lose myself. I almost did when I was together with Sam, and this is so much more than I ever felt with him. His death almost tore me apart. I just can't even imagine it, Helena, what would happen if I got more attached to you only to have you ripped away. I just can't. I'm just so scared."

Helena pulled back from the embrace she had locked the other woman in. Myka's face was buried in her knees. She placed a hand on the younger woman's knee.

"Myka look at me."

The agent complied, looking up at her with tear filled and puffy eyes.

Helena's hand came up to either side of the woman's face, thumbs gently wiping away the tears on Myka's cheeks. She leaned forward, closing her eyes, and lightly brushed her lips against Myka's. So gently, a second later it was hard to tell that their skin had come in contact at all. A shudder ran through Myka.

Helena opened her eyes and leaned back again. Myka's eyes fluttered open to meet hers. The green in her eyes was almost painfully bright this close.

"Myka, if there is one thing I know about, it is fear. You cannot let it control you. Fear turns to anger and hatred, and those emotions make you do irrational things, makes you into something that you're not. Myka, of all the things in this world that showed me there is something worth saving, the biggest thing was you. If you give into fear, that's not the Myka I know and love. Love can hurt you the most, but it can also heal you the most. Myka you heal me more and more every day. You saved me from myself when I was so near the edge and if I did believe in God I would thank him every day for you.

"Yes, I betrayed you. I berate myself every day for that decision. It was quite possibly the most pathetic and stupid and worst decision I ever made. I could never do another thing to hurt you again. Myka, you are the closest thing to an angel I will ever come to know. I will never leave you. You are my reason for living. If not for you I would be dead by now, by my own hand, or perhaps by the elements if I had managed to cause the next ice age, maybe something else, but I would be dead, and if not for you I would be happy about that. Myka, you can be scared all you like, but don't let it stop this from happening." Her voice went hoarse from emotion. "_Please_."

She leaned in again and settled her lips against Myka's. This kiss wasn't a gentle brush of lips. Helena fully felt the softness of the lips beneath her. She had never felt something so wonderful in her life.

She knew the instant that Myka made her decision. She returned the kiss fiercely, so much emotion in the gesture it made Helena ache. If the kiss transferred even a fraction of what Myka had felt this entire time, she did not know how the other woman had stood it. She would've fractured under the pressure long ago.

The need for air drove them apart, but only just. Myka's arms were now wrapped around her. The two lines of warmth across her back radiated throughout her body. Helena was sure she had never felt so content in her life.

They held each other like that, curled into balls on the floor, for hours, not speaking, barely even breathing. The slightest gust might blow away this perfect fantasy for the both of them. It was too much for either of them to quite believe, not after having the other ripped from their arms night after night by fire. Blink for too long and this might just be a dream as well.

Myka's grumbling stomach parted them again. Helena laughed at the sound. It somehow brought everything back into reality. Things like growling stomachs did not happen in dreams. This was reality, no matter how tenuous even reality could be.

"Right then, shall we get you something to eat?" Helena said, smiling.

Myka blushed. "Uh yeah, we could just order take out."

"Nonsense. What would the fun in that be?"

"It would be quick. We still haven't started investigating at Stanford. Artie will be cranky if we don't have some sort of lead for him by the time he lands in London."

"Artie be damned. This is not a night for investigating. The morning will be a sufficient start for the investigation. Until then we shall eat, rest, and sleep. We'll be better prepared for the events to come that way."

"But what if someone else disappears?" Myka bit her lip.

"Myka, considering the emotional state we're both in the next person that might disappear would be us. We would stumble into the artifact and never even realize it. Now isn't the time. The students of Stanford will be much safer with a rested Bering and Wells."

Myka sighed. "I guess…"

"Splendid. Now what kind of food are you in the mood for?"

* * *

Helena took them both out for a nice dinner at a restaurant overlooking the bay. The restaurant wasn't fine cuisine, but from the looks of the people, it was a local favorite. Helena watched with a smile as Myka tucked into her meal with joy. It seemed like everything was finally, finally going right.

The returned to their hotel room and exhaustedly changed into their Pjs. Myka slipped under the covers first, looking over at Helena with wide and questioning eyes. Helena finished pulling her hair back into a loose pony tail and turned toward her.

"Stay with me?" Myka asked quietly.

Helena slipped under the covers beside her. "I wouldn't imagine doing anything else, darling."

Myka laid down and Helena scooted over till she was pressed up against the woman. She draped an arm around the younger woman's waist and sighed. The warmth of Myka's body against her own felt splendid.

She never remembered sleeping better than she had that night.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** The good news, this is a long chapter, and by long I mean like 3 times longer than any other chapter so far. The bad news, this means no chapter on Wednesday. You win some you lose some. Speaking of losing apparently the summary has had two glaringly obvious typos for like a month and I didn't notice them. If you guys see something like that, feel free to point it out. I swear I know English guys. Some days. When calculus isn't involved. Anyway, reviews are lovely as always.

* * *

The next morning Myka woke up warm and perhaps more comfortable than she been laying in bed since she had been a little kid. Helena's arm was still wrapped around her middle, but instead of being pressed up against her back, Helena's head was now resting in the crook of her neck. The author's eyelashes tickled her skin lightly.

Myka sighed happily. If she had known that it would be this good she would have made the decision so much earlier. The fear was still there, there was no avoiding it, but something inside her that had been broken by the death of Sam had healed by a night in Helena's arms. She could again see the good and the bad instead of just the bad. Myka hadn't known just how far she had sunken into that mindset.

Below her Helena's breathing changed becoming shallower. A deep breath later and the other woman's eyelashes fluttered against her neck. She bit her lip to contain a giggle. Well, it seemed she was ticklish there.

"Mmm, good morning darling," Helena mumbled into her hair, voice still heavy with sleep.

"Morning." She kissed the top of Helena's head.

"It is quite possible to never leave this bed? I find myself quite comfortable."

Myka laughed quietly. "Me too, but I don't think it's possible, unless you want to explain to Artie why two days later we're still lounging around in bed while college students disappear."

"I suppose you do have a point, but it is a nice thought."

She pulled back out of the embrace a little and kissed Helena quickly. "We'll have time for that, and the sooner we figure out what artifact running loose at Stanford the sooner that time will be."

Helena was out of her arms and digging through her bag an instant later. "Righty-ho then, let's get going."

Myka laughed again. "Eager beaver, aren't we?"

"Eager beaver? Whatever do you mean? Why would a beaver be eager?"

Myka cocked an eyebrow. "I would've thought that saying would've been around even in your time. Apparently not. It basically just means what it sounds like, you're eager. The beaver was just for the rhyme."

Helena's brow crinkled. "Americans and their impulse towards rhyme." She shook her head.

"Oh, and British people avoid such things completely?"

"Well, no. But at least when we do rhyme we make sense."

Myka shook her head in mock anger, corners of her mouth twitching. "Whatever you say, dear."

She got up out of bed, grabbing her bag. She went for the zipper and frowned. She had forgotten that she had broken it last night. Myka bit her lip. How exactly was she going to open it now? Forget closing it. She sighed. Somehow she was going to have to find time to go buy a new one.

"Helena do you have any idea how to open a bag without a zipper?"

The author reached over her shoulder and slipped a finger into the gap the zipper had left, pulling up and opening her bag quite easily.

"Oh well, I guess I should have thought about that."

"Nonsense, darling." She kissed her forehead. "But you will most definitely need a new bag."

"That, I did manage to figure out on my own."

"I did always admire you for your brains." Helena grinned like the Cheshire cat and slipped into the bathroom to take a shower.

* * *

An hour later they were headed towards Stanford. When she was fully focused on driving the Mini cooper wasn't so bad she supposed, but she still missed her SUV back in South Dakota. She felt as if a semi was about to squish her at all times. Since there weren't any semis around her at the moment, though, that was a little ridiculous.

"You really should teach me how to drive. Driving this thing doesn't seem to do anything for your nerves," Helena said after a few minutes on the highway.

"I'll get around to it. Something tells me you wouldn't have an issue with small cars."

"Considering dodging coaches was something done on a daily basis in my day, no I don't think I would either."

"Crazy."

"Yes, a little, but it was what was done."

* * *

They arrived at Stanford half an hour later. Myka pulled into a parking space and looked over at Helena.

"So who exactly does the file say has disappeared?" She had read the file, but she hadn't really absorbed the information in her over emotional state.

"Daniel Oberlin, Chelsea Row, and Maria Hernandez."

"And am I right in assuming the file has no idea what the link between them is?"

"That you are."

"Well then, let's go find out where they live. Maybe we'll find something there."

Myka walked over to the administration building, arm in arm with Helena. The day was just cool enough to be pleasant. She felt herself smiling for absolutely no reason. She couldn't remember the last time that that had happened.

Once they were inside the administration building, Myka flashed her badge at the secretary and told her they were here to investigate the student disappearances. The woman gave her the "What does that have to do with the Secret Service" look that everyone gave her on Warehouse missions, but gave Myka the information she needed.

She walked back outside with a map of campus, the dorms they needed to go to highlighted. "So much for a common living area. They live all in different dorms, that aren't near each other. They aren't even the same year. One's a freshman, one's a senior, and the other is a junior."

"Perhaps they might be taking the same class?"

"I highly doubt a freshman would be taking a senior level course. Not like it isn't possible…" Myka thought for second. "They could be taking a class from the same professor though. But that might not even be it. This campus is so big it could be a thousand things." Normally she enjoyed the puzzle of cases, now she just wanted this over and done so she could go home and be with Helena.

"Well then, I suppose we should get on that."

* * *

They arrived at Wilbur Hall a few minutes later.

"Let's see, Chelsea Row lived on the second floor in room 237 with Victoria Domingo," Myka read off her paper.

Helena walked over to the stairs. "Shall we?"

Myka walked through the door and started climbing. She heard Helena chuckle softly from behind her. Myka turned around.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing, just realizing how much I liked the view from down here." Helena smiled devilishly.

Myka blushed, turned around, finished walking up the stairs as fast as her dignity would allow her.

Myka knocked on the door labeled 237, hoping that Victoria didn't have a class just then. Trekking back and forth over a campus this big didn't have much appeal. She heard a chair push back inside and the door opened a second later.

A short, dark haired girl was revealed. "Yes?"

"Hi, Victoria?" Myka asked.

"Yeah…"

" I'm Myka Bering and this is Helena Wells. We're with the Secret Service. We're here to talk about your roommate Chelsea. Do you have a second?"

"Sure." The girl stepped back, allowing them into the room.

Helena walked around the room looking over the vanished girls things while Myka continued questioning the roommate.

"When was the last time that you saw Chelsea?"

"About a week ago. For a couple of days I really didn't worry. It was the weekend, sometimes Chelsea just goes out and doesn't come back til Sunday night. She works crazy hard during the week and they goes crazy hard on the weekends partying. She makes me look like a first timer when we're together at a party, and I can hold my alcohol. Uh, not that I ever drink."

"We really don't care that you drink. It's college. We're just here about your roommate," Myka reassured her.

"Oh, well, yeah, so I didn't think anything was wrong until Monday morning when I woke up and she still wasn't back yet. After that I told the campus police she was gone and they came and asked a bunch of questions and looked through her stuff and what not. Why did they call the Secret Service into this? Isn't this more the domain of the FBI?"

Myka never could come up with a good lie. "Uh." She froze.

"Interagency cooperation," Helena smoothly replied.

"Yes, they've been stretched pretty tightly. We're here as a favor," Myka continued.

"Oh, ok."

"Anyway, did you roommate come into contact with anything weird right before disappearing. Maybe something old, out of place?"

The girl shrugged. "I don't know. We weren't best friends or anything. We went out together sometimes, but that was about it. I really didn't know everything about her. I hope you guys find her."

"Do you know where she was going right before she disappeared?"

"Physics 101. It's the only class she has on Fridays."

Myka pursed her lips. She didn't think there was anything else useful to be gained from the girl.

"Well thank you for talking with us." Myka fished a card out of her pocket and handed it to the girl. "Call us if you remember anything you think could be important."

"I will," the girl said nodding.

Once again outside and walking towards the next dorm, Myka turned to Helena. "Did you notice anything out of place on Chelsea's side of the room?"

"No, it appeared as a normal student's room. I saw nothing that could be linked to an artifact."

"Well, hopefully this next interview gives us something to go on."

"One does hope."

* * *

The next dorm they arrived at was Roble Hall. Myka looked up the ivy covered walls. This dorm looked a lot like the one she had spent her freshman year of college in. The corners of her mouth tugged up slightly. That had been quite an interesting year.

"Ok, Daniel Oberlin lived in room 314 with Grant Chang, Mohammed Said, and David Schmitt."

Helena held the door open. "After you milady."

Myka smiled brilliantly. Amazing how such small gestures could make her so happy. She had forgotten this part of being loved in all the hurt and fear, forgotten that little things could be so big. In the end it was the taking away of the little things that hurt the most, not the big things. The casual touches, the sweet everyday gestures, waking up in the other's arms, they meant more than the big nights out, the gifts, and everything else.

Helena came through the door behind her. Myka grabbed her hand and just smiled at her. She hoped the smile contained everything that she couldn't say aloud. From the look of unguarded love that Helena gave her, she thought that she had been successful. Myka brought Helena's hand up to her mouth and lightly pressed her lips to the back of it.

Helena brushed a piece of hair from Myka's face with her free hand, letting her hand rest on Myka's cheek after the offending piece of hair was dealt with. Myka leaned into it. Helena's hands were so warm and soft.

Myka blinked. This wasn't really the time or place for this. She just got so wrapped up in Helena it was hard to keep everything focused sometimes.

"What do you say we go interview some more college students?" Myka asked, ending the moment.

"Why, yes that sounds like quite a lot of fun," Helena replied wryly. "Oh, but I don't drink, even though I just said I did," she said in the most ridiculous American accent Myka had ever heard.

She snorted. "Yeah, well no one ever said college students had much common sense."

"I'd pity the person who did."

A few minutes later they stood outside room 314. Myka had already knocked once, to no answer. She knocked again just to make sure. Another few minutes passed without a sound.

Myka sighed in defeat and leaned against the wall next to the door. "Well, they're obviously not home. Want to wander to the next dorm and come back here later?"

Helena frowned. "I do believe I have a better idea." She pulled a lock picking kit from God knew where.

Myka bit her lip. Normally she would just go and ask someone in charge of the building to unlock the door for them…but Helena picking the lock was faster. And faster meant that maybe they could get back home sometime soon.

"Ok, that works," Myka agreed after a few seconds hesitation.

Helena set to work on the lock and had it open less than thirty seconds later.

"It's scary how good you are at that." Myka walked into the room.

"Yes, well, let's just say you'll never be able to keep me out."

The room was a pig sty. Clothes were all over the floor, notes and books covered the desk, and Myka was pretty sure there was old pizza somewhere in the room from the smell. Her nose crinkled at the scent.

"Well, I think it's safe to say four college boys live here."

"Indeed." Helena walked around, lifting and moving things around to get a better look at everything.

Myka shuffled through things on the other side of the room. She pulled a textbook from the bottom of the stack and raised her eyebrows. Physics, that could be a connection, though honestly how many people did take physics in college?

"Helena, is this the textbook that you found in Chelsea's room?"

Helena turned and looked at it, considering a second before answering, "No, that was basic physics. That one is a textbook about quantum mechanics." Helena's face twisted into a look of confusion. "What the devil is quantum mechanics?"

"It has to do with the movement of tiny subatomic particles. They don't hold to Newtonian physics in their motion. The discipline was founded in the 1930s off of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle."

Helena shook her head. "One hundred years and science has advanced so far. I'm afraid I am woefully behind the times. Perhaps if we ever get a break from inventory I shall rectify that."

Myka laughed. "A break from inventory? Not likely." Myka grew serious again. "Have you seen anything else that could link Chelsea and Daniel?"

"Not in the slightest. From what I saw from Chelsea's desk it seems she has every interest of becoming an Engineer, I see nothing of the sort to suggest the same of Daniel. If anything, I'd guess a physics major with a textbook like that on his desk. They don't have any similar take out menus. Chelsea's desk was neat enough to suggest she does most of her studying in the library or elsewhere, Daniel's desk is anything but neat. They live far enough apart on campus it wouldn't make sense for them eat in the same dining halls. They seem like totally opposite people whose lives do not have much intersect at all. Honestly, I have no idea what links them."

"Me either." Myka put the book back down on the desk. "Maybe interviewing the next person will give us something."

"Or at least we shall hope."

* * *

The buildings of Governor's Corner were spread out, with wide expanses of green in-between them. Students were flopped out all over the grass with books in front of them or surrounded by friends. Myka and Helena walked over to Potter House and walked up to the second floor.

Carly Hansen opened the door just as Myka was about to knock. The girl jerked back, visibly startled.

"Uh, hi. Can whatever this is wait? I have class in five minutes. As it is I'm going to have to sprint."

Myka flashed her badge. "I'm Agent Myka Bering and this is Helena Wells. We're here to ask you a few questions about your roommate."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Look, I've already told you guys everything I know about the disappearance. It's lovely that University Police are doing such a thorough job, but seriously. I have to get to class."

She moved to push past them.

Helena stepped in front of the girl and smiled. "It won't take more than a few minutes. Being a few minutes late for lecture won't hurt too much, would they?"

"Well, I guess, but it's chem, guys, come on. I need as much help in that class as I can get."

"The sooner we get started the sooner you're on your way," Helena continued, British accent coating the words like honey.

"Fine, what do you want to know? The last time I saw her? When she was going to physics lecture on Monday. As far as I know she didn't have anyone she would've run off with, she loved it here on campus, she would never just up and leave. I reported her missing the next day when she didn't come home and I hadn't gotten a text message from her. Ok?"

Myka felt the corners of her mouth pulling down. Had she been anything like this in college? God, she hoped not. "Did your roommate come into contact with anything strange, out of place, or old before she disappeared?"

The girl gave her a look like she was the stupidest person on earth. "I don't know. Why the hell would that matter?"

Myka pulled out a card. "Well if you can think of anything else that might be important, just give me a call."

Helena stepped out of the girl's way. "Have a nice time in class."

The girl rolled her eyes, walked out of her room, shut the door, and sprinted down the hall.

After the girl was out of earshot Helena muttered, "Pleasant, wasn't she."

"Downright enjoyable."

Helena snorted. It was the most elegant snort Myka had ever heard.

* * *

Back outside, the two of them wandered around campus.

"Well I guess physics is the only thing that we really have to go on. All three of them were in physics, but different kinds of physics probably." Myka twirled a piece of hair around her finger as she thought.

"It bears checking out since we have no other leads. Do the lectures have a common classroom?" Helena asked.

"It seems so, there's a lecture hall strictly for physics lectures."

"Well then, away we go."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: **We're back with our regularly scheduled update. And since this one is another short one, there shall be one on Wednesday too. If there wasn't this week I think you guys might kill me for the end of this chapter. With that slightly ominous sentence I shall leave to you read, review, and enjoy.

* * *

The walk to the physics lecture hall took the better part of fifteen minutes. Helena could see that students who lived on campus definitely got their exercise. As for her, her feet hurt immensely from all the walking. The boots she had chosen to wear that day hadn't exactly been the most practical thing in the world, but they made her look fabulous. And since impressing Myka had been at the top of her to do list that morning, the boots had won out over more sensible choices.

A hand grabbed hers, pulling her from her bubble of self-pity. Helena looked over. Myka's face was still forward, watching the students scurry back and forth around them. The woman was breathtakingly beautiful and she was all hers. Finally.

Helena squeezed Myka's hand gently. Even though today had not been how Helena would've preferred the day to go, she couldn't imagine doing anything else right now. Though, hopefully, they were on their way to finding whatever artifact was causing the disturbance and they would neutralize it and then soon be home to execute her more…nefarious plans for Myka Bering.

As luck would have it they walked into the lecture hall in the few minutes before the next class started. Myka went to talk to the professor while Helena looked about the room for possible artifacts. Nothing really stood out to her. It looked much like the lecture halls Helena had sat in during her own school days. Nice to know that some things didn't change.

After a few minutes, though, Helena did notice something a little strange. A few students had gotten up and walked behind the professor's desk, opened the top drawer, grabbed what looked to be a pen, and sat back down. Odd, weren't students supposed to bring their own writing utensils to class? Odder still, that they were allowed into a professor's desk.

Helena walked forward to stand beside Myka, still talking to the professor.

"Hello professor," she said, interrupting him, and smiling the slightly seductive smile that melted all men.

The professor smiled back. "Hello, Miss?"

"Wells."

"Ah Miss Wells. I'm Professor De. Your partner was just asking me a few questions about students of the physics department."

"Yes, it seems all the disappeared students all take physics oddly enough." She stopped and nodded towards another student who was grabbing a pen out from the drawer. "What's that all about? I thought students were responsible for their own supplies."

"Ah, a professor here years ago started the tradition. Brilliant man, but always forgetting his pens everywhere. He set up a drawer of pens for himself and the students to borrow from. It's continued ever since. The students are very good about returning the pens, oddly enough. I don't think we've had to replace the pens in there, ever." He shrugged.

Helena and Myka exchanged a glance. Perhaps this was where their artifact resided. They broke of the conversation with the professor as quickly as was polite and walked over to the pen drawer, pulling on their purple gloves. They opened the drawer together. Myka shuffled the pen around for a few seconds before they both of them saw it, an old fancy ball point pen.

Both their hands touched it at the same time.

Helena felt a strange sensation wash over her. Her head spun, her legs wobbled. What was going on? She was wearing her artifact gloves, the artifact shouldn't be able to activate, so what was happening?

She looked up at Myka. Myka had her hand to her head, her face tightly drawn. It seemed that she was experiencing much the same symptoms as Helena.

The author reached up and took the artifact bag from Myka, opening it and shoving it in. Instead of the normal sparks, nothing happened. Helena's stomach sunk to the ground. This couldn't be good.

"Myka," she said, voice shaky.

"What?" The other woman asked, opening her eyes.

"It didn't spark."

She shrugged. "Maybe it isn't the artifact?"

"And what exactly would you call this sudden illness that seems to have overcome both of us after touching that pen? Coincidence? Myka, I think we've been over that no such thing exists at the Warehouse."

Myka bit her lip. "We'll take it with us just in case, but we should keep investigating just to be safe."

Helena scowled but nodded her ascent.

They exited the lecture hall and walked back onto the campus. Helena felt worse and worse. Beside her Myka had started to lean more heavily on her shoulder. She led them to a bench and sat them both down.

"Myka, something is happening." Helena leaned back against the bench.

"Ok, so maybe something is. We had our gloves on; this shouldn't be the artifact, if the pen was the artifact at all."

Helena brought her head up and just looked levelly at Myka. "Do you have another suggestion for what this could be?"

"Maybe we should call Artie…" Myka trailed off.

Helena dug out the Farnsworth and handed it to Myka. The agent pressed the call button and leaned her head against Helena's shoulder. A second later Artie's face filled the screen.

"What?" He asked in his typical short manner.

"Artie, I think we might have found the artifact, but-" Myka's voice broke in the middle of the sentence.

"But what?" The older man scowled.

"But we think the artifact might have activated even though we were wearing the purple gloves," Helena finished for Myka.

"Nonsense, that doesn't happen and even if it did, you should be fine if you put it in the containment bag."

Helena weakly raised an eyebrow. "What about the time Steve was burned through the gloves by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory door knob? And Artie, do you think that wasn't the first thing we did? The bag didn't give off any sparks."

Artie sputtered for a few seconds before falling silent. "Alright, what's happening?"

"Myka and I got suddenly sick when we touched this pen." She held it up to the screen. "Myka seems to be getting worse faster than I am, as well."

"Whose pen is it?"

"If I had known that Artie I would've told you. All I know is that we found it in a community pen drawer in the physics lecture hall at Stanford that all three of the students who disappeared attended." Helena's patience was wearing thin.

"Alright, alright." He typed something into the computer and hit enter.

A sharp pain went through Helena. The Farnsworth dropped from her hand. Beside her Myka jerked up.

"Helena," Myka's voice was very scared. "What's going on?"

"I don't know."

Another pain shot through her and then everything went black.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** Guys, over fifty follows, guys. I can't even express how elated I am about that. You guys are awesome. So here's the update on Wednesday like I promised…though this probably isn't the resolution to the cliff hanger that you wanted. Are resolutions to cliff hangers ever really what we want? So read, review, feel free to throw things at me, I know it's tempting.

* * *

When Myka opened her eyes again she was in a very different place than Stanford's campus. A very familiar place actually. She was in the Warehouse. She glanced around, in what looked like the Ovoid Quarantine. What was she doing here? No one had gone anywhere near here since Syke's attack.

Slowly the rest of the surroundings filtered in. Pete and Artie were beside her, talking hurriedly and working on something. Helena was across the room fiddling with the control box on the wall. Myka turned around and looked at what Pete and Artie were fiddling with.

Myka's stomach sunk to the floor. The House of Commons bomb was sitting on the table. Oh god, they had four minutes to run and get Gandhi's dhoti. Myka opened her mouth to speak, to yell, to do anything to get the other's attention, but found she couldn't. Her voice was stuck in her throat and she felt frozen.

What was going on? Was this another dream? She thought these would've ended when she finally admitted her feelings for Helena. Then again, after that whammy from the pen maybe it shouldn't really a surprise. Her body had gone haywire after touching it. Maybe her mind was feeling its effects too.

She calmly watched the seconds on the bomb tick down. She would be awake as soon as the timer ran out. She would be fine then. She just had to wait, live through the phantom pain of fire one more time, and she would be fine.

A purple bubbled surrounded her. What was going on? This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She was the one who initiated the bubble. Since she was frozen there wasn't supposed to be a bubble. Why was there a bubble?

She looked over at where she had been standing in her dream when she had made the bubbled around Helena, Artie, and Pete. Helena was standing where she was supposed to be, smiling sadly.

She said the words Myka was supposed to say. "It was the only way I could think to save you."

She felt herself speaking the words Helena was supposed to respond with. "But you're out there."

"It had to be initiated from outside the barrier." The look she gave Myka was so full of love it hurt.

Pete and Artie exploded around her, saying there was another way, some way to save the other woman, but Myka barely heard it. She was so focused on Helena. Her heart swelled when she saw the other woman mouth "I love you." She had never doubted that she had.

"I smell apples." The joy on Helena's face was too much for Myka. She looked down. She knew what was coming next and she didn't want to watch.

She heard the bomb go off, heard metal shriek, things tearing apart. Just hearing it was too much. She wanted out. She wanted to be in the fire. If she was out there the dream would've ended by now, but no, she was stuck in here listening to it all.

And suddenly it was all over. The sounds stopped, replaced by deadly silence. Myka didn't want to look up. She thought somehow that just standing there with her eyes closed would send her back into consciousness. Or at least she prayed it would.

She heard Pete and Artie gasp as they looked around at the destruction. Still Myka didn't look up. She didn't want to see. She never wanted to see. How could her mind come up with something so horrible? Surely she would wake up any time now.

She felt Pete's hands on her shoulders. "Mykes?" he said questioningly. "Are you ok?"

She nodded, keeping her head down and eyes closed. "I'm fine, Pete."

"Mykes, look at me."

Myka swallowed and looked up at Pete reluctantly. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry she's gone. I know I wasn't really nice to her this last year, but in the end she was so much better than I ever gave her credit for."

"Pete, what are you saying, this is just a dream. I mean, yeah, it's a little different than the one I've been having, but it's still a dream. We saved the Warehouse weeks ago, Pete. Helena's fine. We were just at Stanford a little bit ago. I'm sure I'm going to wake up on that park bench in the California sun any second now."

Pete looked at her like she had gone insane. "Mykes what are you talking about? We didn't save the Warehouse." He stepped to the side and let Myka take in the view.

Fire burned all around her. Pieces of steel stuck from the ground at odd angles. Ash rained down from the sky. The only thing intact was the little circle of floor beneath Myka's feet. No, this couldn't be true. This was just that stupid pen messing with her mind. She was just on a park bench in Stanford. She. Was. On. A. Park. Bench. She wasn't here. She wouldn't ever have to be here again if she would just WAKE UP!

She shook her head. "No, no it's not real. It's just the pen messing with my mind Pete. I got whammied before I fell asleep. That's all."

Pete's hands were on her shoulders again, shaking her a little more roughly this time. "Myka! This isn't a joke. You aren't at Stanford. The only thing that got whammied was the Warehouse and Helena along with it!"

Myka took a step back. "No! You don't understand Pete. You just don't understand. Why does it even matter if you understand? You're part of this stupid dream. All I want is to WAKE UP! WHY AM I NOT AWAKE YET?!" Every fiber of her being just wanted this to end.

Pete shook his head and wrapped her in a hug. "Mykes, I know it's hard to accept, but please stop. This is scaring me. You're the strongest person I know. If you're going to have a psychotic break over this I don't know what the rest of us are going to do."

"I'm not having a psychotic break, Pete. I'm not. All of this isn't real. It can't be. It just can't. I love Helena. I just admitted that to her the other day in a hotel in San Francisco. I spent last night wrapped in her arms. I spent the day walking around Stanford investigating a case where three college students disappeared. We figured out that all of them had class in the physics lecture hall and that they all had borrowed a pen from this communal pen drawer. And then we found the pen that was causing it, but it whammied us through our gloves and then we both got really sick and apparently passed out. That's all this is. A fever dream."

Pete just hugged her harder and started to stroke her hair.

Myka swallowed. It had to be a dream. It all had to. Right?


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note:** Tralalalaaaa, it's Sunday! Welcome to the new update. It's four am here as I type this, sorry if I seem a little out in space, it's probably because I am. But anyway, it seems as if a few people are confuzzled about what's going on, part of that's intentional, we wouldn't want to show our whole hand at once, would we? But if you're too confused message me and perhaps I can be of service to you in working out said confusion. Don't worry, I don't bite, the nice people anyway. And now, read, review, enjoy. It amuses/pleases me that you guys read these things, I thought most people just skipped past them…

* * *

God her neck hurt! That was the first thing she realized as she woke up. Dear Lord, what had she done to it? Oh, right fell asleep on a bench in the middle of a college campus, that had probably done her no favors. She supposed moving the rest of her body would be even more painful. Hopefully, Myka wasn't in such bad shape. If she was they would be a sight walking back to the car.

Her eyes fluttered open. She wasn't at Stanford anymore. Her senses went on high alert, muscles tensing, ready to strike, her body falling into kempo's ready position easily.

How had she gotten here? Where was here? She glanced around and saw Artie and Pete, and off on the other side of the room, Myka. Myka? What was she doing up and around? Maybe she had woken up before her.

Helena looked down at herself. She was standing…How had she been asleep if she was standing?

Helena's mind whirred, not thinking fast enough for Helena's liking. The pieces weren't quite fitting. She knew they would if only she could _think_.

Things snapped into sudden clarity. She had seen this before, from two different perspectives, but it was mostly the same. She was in the Ovoid Quarantine. There was the House of Commons bomb on the table in front of Artie and Pete, who were trying in vain to disable it. Myka was fiddling with the same switches that she had used to reroute the Ramati Shackle's shield to surround the small group.

This was her dream, but in reverse almost. Helena cocked her head to the side. Why was she having this dream again? Had the pen induced it? Did it bring about the person's worst fears in dream form?

Best not to chance anything. She reached out to help Pete and Artie, nicking her finger a sharp edge of metal exposed by their tinkering.

"Bugger all," she muttered under her breath. She didn't remember sustaining any damage to her finger before she fell asleep. This wasn't pain transmuting from real life to dream.

Helena swallowed hard and reached up to her neck. The rope burns that had faded days ago were there. All right then, but dreams could do that, make you feel things that weren't there. They had every night for weeks.

But those dreams had never felt this real, even the flames at the end that left her tingling. No, this felt like something else entirely, a feeling Helena was familiar with as well. Something that could be catastrophic.

As many times as she had traveled in time to try in vain to save Christina she was most familiar with the feel of time travel. It wasn't something one noticed if they only traveled to the past once, even several times. It was something she had only noticed after dozen of failed attempts to stop her daughter's murder.

But her time machine wasn't active. It couldn't be. They were on Stanford's campus right before they had traveled, the time machine was back at the Warehouse. There was no way this could be her invention…and if not it had to be the pen's doing.

Helena bit the inside of her lip. And this wasn't the normal past either. This was some sort of different stream of time where they didn't save the Warehouse.

She closed her eyes. Nothing was ever coincidence in the Warehouse, not even dreams. How she wished she was wrong. Here was Myka's dream playing out in front of her at this very instant.

But she could change it. She knew how to save them. Gandhi's dhoti. It was just a few aisles away. She glanced at the timer. There was still ample time to retrieve it.

She moved to take a step in that direction, but found she couldn't move. She tried to move again to the same result. Speaking was just a futile. It seemed that trying to change this situation was not allowed.

Helena just couldn't stand for that. There had to be some way around it. There was a way around everything, Victorian era women's standards, physical time travel, a normal human lifespan, everything. Helena just had to think about it.

She thought about everything, tried everything that came to mind, and she would've kept going, but for the barrier of the Ramati Shackle coming up around her. Her eyes went wide. Myka.

She turned to the woman, dark eyes boring into green. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Helena was supposed to save Myka. Not the other way around. She didn't give a damn that this was playing out how it had in Myka's dream. She was here. She should've saved the woman she loved. Again.

But it was too late now. She wanted to scream at Myka. Tell her to take the barrier down, allow her out to die at her side. Scream there was no way she would live without the woman. But instead she felt her mouth moving in words that were already scripted.

"Myka, what are you doing?"

Myka smiled, tears in her scared green eyes. "It was the only way I could think to save you."

"But you're out there." She felt like a marionette controlled by some cruel puppet master.

"It had to be initiated from outside the barrier." Myka looked at Helena as Artie and Pete screamed and raged at Myka, saying there was another way. In this reality, there wasn't. This was how it had to be.

Helena's nails bit into her palms.

Myka's gaze morphed from scared to loving. Helena knew what had just gone through her mind. She had accepted that she was about to die, and she was happy that she had at least managed to save Helena in the process. Myka smiled again, this time radiantly.

"I love you," she mouthed.

The bomb ticked towards its final seconds. Helena tried to throw herself at the barrier, but couldn't. She was still not under her own control.

"I smell apples." Myka closed her eyes.

The bomb went off a second later. Helena hit the side of the barrier, fists beating the protective walls.

"NO!" she screamed. She was under her own control now, but it was too late. It was done.

She slumped to the floor. The Warehouse burned around her, but she had ceased to care. The only thing that had mattered to her had already gone up in flames.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note:** *cackles* I'm sorry guys about the feels. But this is just the beginning. We're only about half way through what I have written. And I have more to write, for sure. So the feels won't end anytime soon. Sorry. At least it's not the tumblr bering and wells angst plague. Things could be so much worse. So, reviews, and all that jazz? Enjoy.

* * *

Myka woke up in her bed in the B&B. She smiled and rolled over, reaching out for Helena.

Helena…

It hit her like a ton of bricks. Helena was gone. The Warehouse was gone. Everything was gone.

A sob wracked her. She couldn't. She just couldn't. This wasn't a dream. Even her worst nightmares would have ended long ago. This was reality, cold, hard, bitter reality.

But there was some hope. What about the memories of Stanford? She refused to think of them as dreams. She there was no way she could. It was all she had left, that and Helena's locket. The metal pressed against her skin.

She could figure out something to make everything right again. She would…but not right now. Everything was too much right now. All she wanted to do was sleep. She turned over and fell back asleep, dreaming of Helena and a world full of ash.

* * *

Later that day Pete managed to coax her downstairs to eat something. The atmosphere in the dining room wasn't much better than it had been up in her room. Claudia stared blankly ahead, fork moving automatically up and down. Leena looked like she was trying to hold it together as best she could, but her best still looked like she was about to fall apart if someone so much as blew on her. Artie was slowly fingering a pocket watch that Myka had never seen before. She didn't care enough to ask about it. And Pete sat in the middle trying to strike up conversation, trying to lighten the mood, but no one was having any of it. Eventually he went silent.

Everyone dispersed after the meal. Myka stayed to help Leena clean up, more for a distraction than anything else. The innkeeper didn't say anything as Myka helped her carry dirty plates into the kitchen, just smiled shakily.

It was ironic how similar this was to the other day when she had cooked with Leena to avoid confronting her feelings about Helena. What she would give right now for that to be her biggest problem. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

What if everything at Stanford was just her mind trying to give her false hope? What if it was the dream, since this world clearly was not? What if she had never actually confessed her feelings for Helena? What if she had let her die without letting her know that she indeed loved her too?

The thoughts made the tears fall harder. If that was the case then how could she live with herself? How could she live without the one person who knew her best?

She didn't have any answer.

The dishes were finished too soon and Myka drifted off, having no idea what to do with herself. What was there to do now that the Warehouse was gone? There was no work, no America's attic, no endless wonder. What was there anymore? Myka closed her eyes. All she saw were ashes.

Somehow her legs carried her to the library. Was it really the only the other day the two of them had sat here reading together? It seemed like so much longer. God knew if that memory was even real. Myka felt her sanity slipping inch by inch. With no idea what was real, what to believe, or what she wanted to believe, there was nothing to latch onto but the fact that all she wanted was to have Helena back in her arms. And down that path, at least right at this instant, lay madness. She couldn't ever have Helena again. She had really only had her once. If she ever had.

Myka closed her eyes, head spinning. This was so, so complicated. She couldn't handle it.

She grabbed the first book off of the table and started reading. She needed to be anywhere but in this reality at the moment. Books would help her out in that respect nicely.

Minutes or hours later Artie came in, looking a little bit more alive that he had been before. "Come on, everyone's in the dining room."

Myka glanced up at him and then back down to the book. "What's the point?"

"I think I have an idea to save the Warehouse."

Myka shut her book quickly, spark of hope flaring to life again. If the Warehouse was saved, Helena might be saved as well. She rushed to the dining room and sat down on her usual chair, almost falling off in her haste.

Artie gave her a weird look as he sat down as well. He took the pocket watch he had been messing with at dinner. Everyone else looked on expectantly. Myka was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. Artie sat there staring at the pocket watch for a few seconds more. Myka wished he would just get on with it. Every second they wasted was one more than Helena could be back in her arms.

"This pocket watch was left to me by James Macpherson," Artie said finally.

"Wait, the guy who was selling artifacts and let Lady Cuckoo out of the bronze sector?" Pete winced a second after finishing his sentence. "I mean Helena." He looked apologetically over at Myka.

Myka was too involved in staring at the pocket watch to really take offence. What could that little pocket watch do that could save the Warehouse?

"Yes, and my former partner. Nice to know you have a long term memory." Artie rolled his eyes and went on. "Macpherson always told me that the watch would help save the Warehouse in a time of great peril. I think this might just count."

Everyone around the table nodded in agreement.

"I've been trying to figure out how to get it to work and a few minutes ago, I figured it out."

"So how does it work?" Myka asked. Getting to the meat of things didn't seem to be anyone's main priority right then.

Artie opened the watch and gently removed the face, revealing another face with a thin red arrow on it.

"I was trying to take apart the watch to see if I could figure out how it worked when I found this. It seems to almost act as a compass." He turned it around and around to demonstrate. The arrow always pointed the same way, a little to the left of Myka.

"So what?" Claudia asked. "We follow the watch wherever it wants to lead us and then?"

"I would think that's something to figure out when we get there."

"What if this isn't leading us to anything that can save the Warehouse though? Then aren't we just wasting our time? Couldn't we be doing something more important?" Her eyes flicked over to the metronome. Since the Warehouse had been destroyed it had stayed in the dining room for lack of a better place.

"As of now, Claudia, I don't see we have much other choice. Unless you have a plan to save the Warehouse squirreled away somewhere that the rest of us don't know about?"

Claudia scowled. "Well no, but, as I believe they said back in your day, is it really wise to put all our eggs in one basket? That's what I'm trying to get at, ok oh great wise one?"

Artie sighed. "All right, fine. If you want to stay here while the rest of us follow the pocket watch, so be it, but you will be doing research on a backup plan since you seem to be so worried about the pocket watch not working. Got it?"

Claudia considered for a second. "Alright."

"The rest of you, get packed. I'm hoping whatever we need is near, but I have no idea where whatever this is leading us to is, so best be prepared."

With that Artie got up and walked from the dining room.

Myka shot up after him. There was a way to save Helena. It may all depend on a pocket watch compass, but there was a way to save Helena. Myka heart soared, the dream of Stanford almost forgotten for the moment. What did a fantasy matter when there was a real, tangible way to save the woman she loved?

She was packed and back downstairs in five minutes, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet while she waited for the others to come back down. She heard Claudia typing away furiously in the dining room and Leena pacing around in the living room. She felt the way the air flowed around her, the heat as the light from outside filtered in a window and landed on her shoulder. She felt more aware than she had in days. Myka sucked in a breath. She felt like her old hyper observant self. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Finally. She needed to be on her game for this mission. It was the most important one of her life.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note: **Ah, your regular dose of angst and feels. I mean, welcome to the update guys! :D So, this story has topped 10,000 hits. I've never had that many hits on anything in my life. I might be literally screaming about this. You guys are awesome. Thank you for reading, and continuing to read. Continue being awesome and read, enjoy, and review.

* * *

Helena felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. She existed in her own sort of limbo, her own sort of hell. Everything she loved had been ripped away from her in the most painful way possible. She couldn't take it anymore. Her brain had just shut down.

She supposed that Pete was probably trying to snap her out of it. Artie was probably yelling at her that it was all her fault that Myka was dead. Not that she could feel or hear any of it, not that she cared.

The landscape around her probably looked much like she felt, ashen and destroyed, twisted pieces of what used to be reaching towards the sky. She wished her eyes could see. The sight of the destroyed Warehouse might comfort her in a strange way.

Then again it would also remind her of what she had just lost. Better to stay in this oblivion, but not by much. It almost felt like being bronzed again. She wished she had been bronzed when the Warehouse exploded. Then this all would be over. She wouldn't be suffering. She would be gone, to whatever else was beyond the mortal coil, if there was anything. Helena desperately hoped there was for Myka's sake. It pained her to think of Myka being gone forever in all realms. Someone so vibrant and full of life couldn't just be gone from the universe, could they?

They could. She knew it. Her own Christina had been the same way, loving and good, and she was gone, was she not?

Helena hated her own mind, hated the logical way it picked everything apart. For once she wished she could just be a creature of emotion, to be able to take comfort in thoughts of a world beyond the one which humans resided that was somehow better, a paradise like none she could imagine.

But she couldn't. All she could see was ash and the space left by the woman she loved.

She wondered in the back of her mind whether she had the courage to join Myka beyond the veil. It certainly would be less painful. But unless something had changed over the last century in bronze, she knew she couldn't. She had tried more than once after Christina had been taken from her. She had lost the courage to pull the trigger every time she placed the gun to her head. She had hated guns before; she had hated them more after. So lethal, so easy to kill another with a cold piece of steel, but it had failed to take her life when she most desperately needed it. Though now there were other things Helena could use to take her life, not just a gun. She thought it over, ending her life by a massive dose of prescription medicine, but her mind shrunk from even that.

She was a coward. And she had to live with it. Live without Myka.

What was she going to do then? She couldn't return to bronze. She couldn't kill herself. She certainly couldn't stay anywhere near the Warehouse. Staying here would only keep open the wound of losing Myka.

She had to leave. But that would require feeling and the return of her senses. She wasn't quite ready for that. She wasn't sure she would ever be, but it did have to happen at some point, didn't it? But that would come in its own time. Helena would not rush it. This oblivion was a treat she would not experience again.

Helena relaxed back into the grey fog of her mind. The fog embraced her like a lover. Her thoughts paused. Of course that would be the metaphor to describe it. Of course it would. Everything would remind her of Myka now she supposed. It would be exquisite torture. And eventually it would drive Helena mad.

She wasn't sure she had a problem with that.

The fog slowly faded. Helena was at once glad it was gone and terribly sad. She blinked the last of the grey from her vision and looked out over the remains of the Warehouse.

It was just as much of a disaster zone as Helena had imagined. She felt the corners of her mouth turning up in what had to be quite the deranged smile. Fitting that something else in the world was feeling as much pain as she was.

She rose to her feet and walked out of the remains, glimpsing Artie and Pete trying to salvage what they could. Helena shook her head. The fools. Nothing here was worth saving.

She came to Myka's SUV and chuckled softly. Myka had loved this vehicle, at least in comparison to the Mini Cooper they had been driving around San Francisco. Helena opened the door and slipped in. The keys were still in the ignition. She turned the key and the engine flared to life. Only then did it occur to her that she really didn't know how to drive.

She shifted the car from park into drive as she had seen Myka do a thousand times. Now was as good as any to learn. She grabbed the wheel, and pushed on one of the pedals, getting lucky and finding the gas on the first try. She took a few loops around the large field around the Warehouse, accustoming herself to the car, before turning towards the B&B. She had one thing to take care of before she headed for the hills, literally and metaphorically.

She entered, slipping in soundless to avoid the innkeeper. She heard sobs coming from the dining room, two sets actually, but didn't stop. She didn't want to know. She had enough sadness to deal with.

Myka's room was perfect. There was no denying it was her room. The attention to detail about every little thing screamed of the woman's perfectionism. Helena closed her eyes, tears leaking out from behind her eyelids.

A few tears later, Helena wiped her eyes. She was here to accomplish a task and go. She had to remember that. She grabbed a bag from under Myka's bed and started to shove anything and everything of Myka's into it, her Farnsworth, clothes, photos, trinkets, anything that would fit. When the bag was full she zipped it up and slung it onto her shoulder. She had left very little, just a photo of Myka, Claudia, Pete, Leena, and Artie plus some of Myka's clothing. She hoped the others could forgive her for being so selfish. Then again if they didn't, she didn't care so much.

She walked out the door of the B&B, certain she would never return.


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note:** Sorry this is up a bit later than usual. Or maybe this is on time for Wednesday updates…I can't remember. All I know is I seemed to have published the last few updates at like 4 in the morning, though maybe I'm just remembering Sunday updates... Anyway, it's here now and the plot thickens. Read, review, and enjoy like always.

* * *

They drove east. Hours and hours passed. It reminded Myka of the drive from D.C. to the Warehouse when she first had been recruited. Except this time Pete and Artie were with her, making the drive easier and making it pass a little bit faster than it would have had she been alone. Still, though, the sense of anticipation was killing her.

They took turns driving as they made their way across the country. Myka tried to sleep while she wasn't behind the wheel, but found it impossible. Her brain was going a million miles an hour, planning, trying to put all the details of the mission ahead of them together, trying to predict possible problems. Since she didn't have too much to go on, her brain mostly went around in circles, but this time she didn't feel frustrated. Helena could be in her arms soon. She didn't think there was much in the world that could bring her down now.

Except if the plan didn't work.

Her brain shoved that thought aside immediately. She had to hope for the best. She had to. Or else everything would fall apart again.

Finally, they came to the coast. Myka smelled the salt air before she ever saw the ocean. When the car crested the last hill and the vast blueness of the open ocean was revealed to them, Myka smiled. She couldn't help but think that Helena would love this view.

They stopped a little while later at a hotel to regroup and assess what to do next. They were in a little town in Maine that Myka had never heard of. It was quaint, the typical small town, but obviously not what they needed.

"Well, seeing as the arrow is still pointing east we have two option, to sail east or to fly," Artie said, sitting down at the small table in the room he had claimed as his own.

"Flying is faster, and what are the odds that whatever this pocket watch is supposed to find is in the middle of the ocean?" Myka paced the room, thinking, weighing the options and risks carefully.

Artie shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

Myka's mind flashed back to the memories, dream, whatever, of Stanford. Stranger things had already happened.

"Alright, but flying will give us a quicker result than sailing will. It takes eight hours to cross the Atlantic in a plane, a week in a boat."

Artie nodded. "Point taken, but then the question is where do we fly into?"

Myka picked up the watch that Artie had put on the table. She held it up, considering where the arrow pointed, considering where they were in Maine, and what exactly was across the Atlantic from them. There were a dozen options depending on just how far east the artifact was, but Myka had a strong feeling she knew which one of them to go to, almost like a vibe. But that was Pete's thing, not hers. She shrugged; it couldn't hurt to follow it.

"I think France would be our best bet. The south of it to be exact," Myka finally said.

"How do you know?" Pete asked.

"Basic geography."

"Right." Pete drew out the word for several seconds.

"What, it's obvious if you follow a world map."

"Not all of us have the world map memorized."

Myka opened her mouth to reply, but Artie interrupted her.

"Anyway, France sounds like a fine idea. Now if you two will leave me alone I'll make the necessary plans to get us over there so we can continue searching." Artie made a shooing motion with his hands.

"Ok then, see you tomorrow Artie," Pete said walking out the door.

Myka lingered for a second longer, glancing back at Artie. He was holding the pocket watch, just staring at it, something he had been doing a lot during the trip. Myka had thought it was just to make sure they were going in the right direction, but now she wasn't so sure.

"Are you alright, Artie?" Myka asked.

"Fine, fine." He waved her off.

"Are you sure?" Her hand went to Helena's locket around her neck. It hadn't left her for longer than it took to take a shower since the Warehouse had blown up.

Artie glared over at her, but the look wasn't as fearsome as normal. "I said I was fine, Myka. Go get some sleep. You've been up a day or more straight." He slipped the pocket watch into his pocket and turned around to face the one window in the room. "I'll book the flight and we'll be off again tomorrow. We'll save the Warehouse. We will."

Myka cocked her head. Something more was going on, but she didn't quite know what yet. She bit her lip, but decided it was best not to push Artie anymore that night.

"Alright Artie, goodnight."

All she got was a grunt in reply as she walked out of the room.

* * *

Myka slept that night, but only fitfully. Helena kept invading her dreams, and it was obvious to her that the other woman wasn't in a good state of mind. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she hurdled down the road in what looked to be Myka's SUV. Even in the dream Myka scowled. What was Helena doing driving? She could hurt herself. And why was she crying?

One of Helena's hands slipped to the locket around her neck. "Oh Myka," she whispered. The hand on the steering wheel was gripping so hard the knuckles were white. "It should have been me." A huge sob wracked the woman's body.

Helena slowed the car down and pulled off to the side of the road. She curled her body around the steering wheel and let sob after sob shake her tiny frame.

Myka wanted to reach out, wanted to hold her, tell her everything was going to be fine, but in this dream she had no form. She was only able to watch from afar. It frustrated Myka beyond belief to be able to see Helena in her dreams, but have her in such a state, to not be able to comfort her.

"Helena." Myka had spoken without realizing it. The corners of her mouth turned up. So she could speak in the dream, but not touch anything. She could deal with that.

"Helena!" she said, louder.

The author started to sob harder.

"Helena, honey, don't cry. It's going to be fine."

Helena's fist came down on the steering wheel, sending a honk into the night. "How can it be fine? God, I thought torturing myself while in bronze was bad enough, now it seems like my brain wants me to go completely nutters," the woman muttered to herself. "I can't hear Myka's voice. Myka is dead. I should have saved her."

"Helena, I'm not dead. I'm right here."

Helena glanced over at the space where Myka was and laughed, bitterly.

"If only, darling, if only." She sighed and turned back towards the steering wheel. "I suppose some rest might help this whole hearing things situation. But then again I might just be certifiably insane." She snorted. "That would almost be a blessing."

Myka tried to speak again, but found she couldn't this time. She watched Helena drive in silence for a very long time until she opened her eyes and found herself back in her hotel room.

She sat up rubbed her hands over her eyes. Why was she having dreams like that? She should be having happy dreams about reuniting with Helena, not dreams of the other woman sobbing and driving in the night. This was like the nightmares about the Warehouse blowing up all over again.

That thought gave her pause. There was something niggling at the back of her brain, but she couldn't quite get at it. She bit her lip and thought for a few more seconds, but nothing came to her. She shrugged and let it go. It would come to her when it was ready.

Myka got up and stretched. Today was going to be a long day. She hated international flights. They were long, tedious, and quite frankly she wasn't a fan of being cooped up in such a small space for that amount of time. She supposed it might be a little better if they were traveling first class, but the Warehouse was still a government agency, in the vaguest sense, anyway. There was no money for such frivolous things. Not that that had stopped Helena from upgrading her seat to first class every time they were on an international flight, but not everyone was an author with a bank account full of one hundred years worth of royalties.

A smile ghosted across her face. She was sure that if Helena was here she would upgrade her seat for her, knowing how much she hated international travel. She sighed. That would happen soon enough. All that she had to get through was one flight. She could handle it.

She got up and went to take a shower. She stayed in much longer than she planned to, remembering back to the hotel stay in Stanford, replaying everything that happened, wishing that she had given into the Helena's request to stay in bed for a little longer. Her mind wandered to other things that could've happened in that bed.

She felt herself blushing even redder than the hot water turned her skin. She knew if Helena could see her now she would be laughing, almost reading her mind. Myka rested her head against the wall. She wished that she was in San Francisco instead of Maine. She wished she knew if the things that happened there were actually memories, or just a dream. She wished a lot of things.

But those wishes didn't matter. Or they wouldn't matter soon enough. She had to keep reminding herself of that. Helena was just an airplane flight away…wasn't she?

Myka shook her head. This wasn't getting her anywhere. She finished her shower quickly and changed into a fresh outfit for the day. She met Artie and Pete downstairs and they loaded into the car, headed for Portland International Jetport.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note:** Ok, so note, I played with canon a little bit here. I'm fairly sure Christina was in Paris when she was killed, but for the sake of this story I needed her in Marseilles. Because geography. Would it have been easier to write about Paris, yes, since I've actually been there, but geography shot down my dreams. I'm glad you guys like the dreams, and thus my way of somehow keeping them together even though they're apart. There shall be more of them, but you'll have to wait for next chapter for the next one. As always, read, enjoy, and review if you would like.

* * *

Helena woke up abruptly, the last vestiges of a dream of Myka in the shower clinging to the edge of her mind. She groaned. Why was her mind torturing her like this? First with delusions of hearing Myka's voice and now dreams of her in the shower. What was next? She didn't think she could take much more and stay sane. That was, if she still was sane for that matter.

Her hand traveled to the other side of the bed and rested on her bag of Myka's things. She felt safer knowing it was there, felt safer knowing there was still something tangible left of Myka in this world. Her fingers stroked over the fabric as she stared at the golden rays of sun on the wall.

It was most assuredly afternoon now, but that didn't surprise her. She hadn't checked in until five a.m. She was somewhere in Illinois, not that it really mattered to her. What was she supposed to do with that information? No place she could ever go would have what she really wanted.

She sighed and closed her eyes. So what exactly was there to do next? She had the funds to travel indefinitely; she had enough money to do whatever she pleased really. Helena was thankful that one hundred years of royalties and interest had left her with scads more money that she would ever know what to do with. It came in handy sometimes. Okay all the time if she was being honest.

She bit her lip. She supposed she could go home to England for a while. She hadn't really had time to appreciate how much her mother country had changed while she was there getting the impreceptor vest.

She scowled. That had been the first time she had met Myka. Forever destined to meet at gun point. What she would give to have that gun pointed at her again.

She smiled as she remembered that day. There had been a spark between her and Myka even then, though she wasn't sure Myka had been aware of it. Helena hated guns, hated the violence they could cause, but in Myka's hands she saw no harm in the weapon. She knew the other woman wouldn't harm her. A strange feeling to have staring down the muzzle of a gun, certainly, but it had been there all the same. Finally she had met another woman that was a force to be reckoned with, a force equal to her own, she could just feel it. She had been smitten ever since.

Of all the mistakes she had ever made, betraying that love for the Minoan Trident to try and end her pain. The pain she felt now was even worse, now Myka _and _Christina had been taken away from her, but she owed Myka too much to even consider another stunt like that. She would suffer on in her own way until death saw fit to take her to the two people she loved most.

If death did such things…

Helena got up and opened the curtains, letting in the dying light of day. Christina. It had been a while since she had really, really thought about her daughter. She missed her every day, but the distractions of the Warehouse had kept her mind busy enough to keep it at a gentle tug on her heart, not the gut wrenching pain it had been while she was bronzed. She opened her locket and looked down and the picture of a little girl with raven black hair, just like her mother.

She knew where she would go; somewhere she hadn't dared set foot in since the debacle with the time machine. She picked up the phone and dialed the number for the nearest international airport.

"Hello," a pleasant female voice answered after a few rings.

"Hello, I'd like to reserve the next available seat on a flight to Paris."

The woman was infinitely helpful. Helena's recent travel arrangements had either been done for her or had been through the Warehouse. She had no real idea of how one went about reserving a ticket on an airplane, but soon enough it was done. She gathered up her things, and the bag the contained all of Myka's, cradling it gently.

She checked out a few minutes later and drove in the hour silence to O'Hare airport. She almost wished that Myka's voice called out to her like it had done the night before, but there was no such luck. Perhaps she wasn't going insane after all. Helena felt a little sad at the prospect. If going insane meant hearing Myka's voice, then she would gladly go down the path of madness. Perhaps all she needed to do was wait. With all of the grief pent up inside of her it was only a matter of time until madness had its clutches on her again.

* * *

The flight was uneventful. Helena didn't get her normal thrill at the prospect of soaring through the air. She just stared ahead and watched the images of the movie silently flash by, not really feeling anything. She supposed that was better than feeling the pain she had felt before.

She remembered this numb feeling. It was a respite between the times of intense pain. She used to value this time. It was so rare and allowed her to at least act like a normal human being, even if she didn't quite feel like one. It kept her friends and family from butting in and trying to "help" her.

She didn't really have to worry about that now. She really didn't have any friends or family to speak of. At least there was one upside to that.

* * *

Ten hours later and she was in Paris. The sound of French around her was odd, but despite her rusty, slightly outdated French, she understood most of what was going on. She thanked her lucky stars that French was something that everyone learned in England back in the 1800s. It did quite come in handy.

She took a taxi to the nearest train station and bought a ticket to Marseilles. Two more hours and her journey would be complete. It was sort of fitting that one death of a loved one had driven her to the sight of another. Almost like everything had come full circle. In some ways she supposed it had. She had gone from being loved to being alone and angry to loved again and back to alone. It had taken one hundred years, but it had happened.

As she approached Marseilles the numbness started to fade, replaced by the all too familiar pain. In a way she welcomed it. It meant that Christina was still was important to her.

She stepped out of the train station into the bright sun and gasped. The city looked much the same as it had a hundred years ago. Memories came rushing back to her, dropping Christina off in the city for the summer, past summers she herself had spent there, walking around the city as the nanny while she was trying to save Christina. The last of the numbness faded. She collapsed to her knees.

Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to come here after all. But yet she had nowhere else to go. She might as well stay here.

Helena collected herself quickly. The dirty looks the French gave had not changed in one hundred years either. She dusted herself off and grabbed her things, walking down the road. She knew exactly where she was going. She had to see what had become of the house that Christina had died in all those years ago.

The streets she took were familiar. The cobblestones had changed into paved roads, and the houses facades wore different colors and bore marks of different owners, but Marseilles was still Marseilles. It was strange how time could change so much in some places, yet leave others untouched.

After twenty minutes of walking she stood in front of the house. The shutters were different, blue instead of black. So were the flowers, they were geraniums instead of petunias, a favorite of her cousins. But more importantly the house was still there. She had worried that the last trace of Christina, save the picture she had in her locket, had been wiped off the face of the planet.

Her hand went up to grip her locket, so hard she felt the metal bite into her hand. She didn't let go. How could she let go?

She stood staring at the old house for a very long time. Darkness started to fall on the city. Helena knew she should probably go and find a hotel somewhere, but she couldn't manage to budge her feet from the spot.

She debated several times about going up to the door and knocking, but knew that wouldn't get her anywhere. How was she supposed to explain that her daughter had been murdered in that house one hundred years previous? She would be thrown into an institution within the hour if she tried. No, she just stood there and stared until the streetlights flickered on.

Helena blinked as the light from the nearest light shined into her eyes. Artificial lights could at times be as annoying as they were handy. She much rather preferred candles. But the light did serve to wake her from whatever waking slumber she had been in.

She sighed and looked away from the house. She wondered if the inn that had been a few blocks from here was still open. She could stay there for the night. It would be close to this house if she needed to come back. Helena almost laughed at the image of her walking back to the house in Pjs. Yet, as much as she laughed she could see herself doing it.

She turned and walked towards where she hoped the inn still was. What was she doing here? Of all the places in the world she could've picked, why here? Why was she causing herself unnecessary pain?

Helena was pleasantly surprised that the inn she had remembered was still there. It was a little shabbier than she recalled, but she wasn't exactly looking for a five star hotel at this point. She checked in, chatting pleasantly with the owner for a few minutes. The man was obviously lonely. From what Helena could tell from the pictures on the wall he had been married once, and still wore his wedding ring on his finger, but the inn looked like it had lacked a feminine touch for a long time. He knew of loss just as Helena had. It made her kinder to him than she would've been normally. The kindness of a stranger may not help the pain, but she knew it didn't make it any worse.

She settled into her room a little while later, throwing her bag on the ground and gently setting down the bag of Myka's things. What she really needed was a shower and some sleep after traveling for the entire day, but she walked out onto the small balcony instead.

She wasn't very high up, third floor, but it gave her enough height so see for a sizeable distance. She watched the people come and go in the dark, lights flickering on and off in the distance and let her mind wander. So many pleasantly painful memorizes zipped across her mind, but she finally settled on the kiss her and Myka had shared the night before they had been transported by the pen. She wished she could kiss those lips just one more time. She would do anything to make it happen.

Helena closed her eyes. Well, short of blowing up the world she would do anything, and perhaps even then if she didn't already know that Myka wouldn't approve she would have blown up the world anyway.

She wandered in from the balcony and took a long shower. The hot water ran out long before she finished, but she didn't feel the cold. She finally laid down in bed, cuddling up under the covers and staring at the ceiling. Helena didn't feel particularly tired, but she felt her eyes drifting closed anyway. If only Myka were here with her she would sleep the best she had in years.

As she drifted off she thought she felt the other woman's body pressed against hers, but she knew it couldn't be true.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note:** The answer to why Paris wouldn't work geographically lies herein. I might be plotting things. I just might be. I'm really excited to put up the next chapter. Like _really_ excited. But this one comes first. So. Read, review, enjoy and we will get to the first part of my plotting things later this week.

* * *

The flight was long, tedious, and more than a little irritating, but Myka managed to get through it. Pete was still chipper as always when they landed. Artie was too focused on the watch to be bothered by anything on the flight, so it was only Myka that managed to touch down in Paris grumpy. All she really wanted was a long nap and to be away from people for a while, perhaps with a good book, and a giant pack of twizzlers. But none of those were in her future, short of a miracle.

She just bit her lip and followed the signs to the baggage claim. Once they all had their bags, she turned to Artie. The man had been so distracted Pete had had to pull his bag off the carousel for him.

"Ok, so the arrow is pointing south right?" Myka asked.

"More like south east, but yes," Artie replied.

Myka thought about that for a second. "Alright, considering where we were in Maine and that it's pointing south east now, that means whatever the arrow is pointing to must be somewhere along the Rivera."

"Yes! Hot girls in bikinis! Or less!"

Myka rolled her eyes. "Right, you realize that's not what we're here for right. Artifact that could save the Warehouse, remember?"

"Uh, yeah, right. But that doesn't mean I can't look while we're there."

"Who says we're even going near a beach?"

Artie cleared his throat. "Ok, so the best plan of action would be to make our way to the Rivera. Any guesses what city we should shoot for, Myka."

She shrugged. "We could always start from Marseilles. It's the obvious choice. Then we can see where the arrow points from there."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pete doing his happy dance.

"Right, Marseilles it is." Artie walked away in a completely random direction.

"Uh, Artie? The exit is this way," Myka called after him.

"Right, right," Artie grumbled before going the way Myka pointed.

* * *

The train ride was better than the plane. Myka thought that had something to do with the absence of screaming babies and the fact that no one was trying to jam a chair through her solar plexus. Myka leaned her head on the window and sighed. She hoped whatever they were looking for was actually in France. She didn't want to gallivant all around Europe. That would waste time the Helena could be back in her arms. Her eyes slipped closed as she imagined the hug she would get from the author once they all arrived back at the Warehouse. The corners of her mouth twitched up slightly as more and more scenarios played out behind her eyelids.

* * *

Two hours later they slowed down to pull into the train station at Marseilles. The sudden drop in speed woke Myka. She had apparently fallen asleep at some point during the train ride, but she swore she had stayed conscious the whole time. It seemed like the jet lag was getting to her. She yawned and started to stretch.

Artie jumped jump beside her. "Oh!" He exclaimed.

"What?" Pete asked, craning his neck to try to see the watch from across the aisle.

"The arrow moved!" Artie was practically jumping up and down. This was as animated as Myka had ever seen the man.

"That means it has to be somewhere in Marseilles, right?" Pete practically looked like a giraffe, his neck was stretched out so far to try and see the watch.

"Hopefully. It would make the most sense."

Myka closed her eyes again and thanked whoever might be listening. They were one step closer to saving the Warehouse, finally. She could practically taste Helena's lips on hers.

"Now the question is where in Marseilles." Myka bit her lip. Marseilles was a big city. Maybe they weren't as close as she thought. The taste of sweet lips faded from hers.

"It has to be somewhere near the train station, doesn't it? I mean the arrow didn't change direction until just a second ago," Pete said.

"And it has to be somewhere in the north of the city, so that narrows it down even more," Artie continued.

"So we have a half circle out from the train station that could be where our artifact is. Booyah! Progress." Pete smiled brightly.

Myka snorted at his ridiculous grin, but felt herself smiling along anyway. They had this under control. Everything would be fine. Artie and Pete would help her. There was no need to panic. Myka took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. She just had to keep reminding herself that everything would be fine.

But yet there was a feeling in the bottom of her stomach that started to creep up her throat again. It left a bad taste in her mouth. But it was ridiculous, she was just panicking because she didn't want anything to go wrong. Everything was fine. Fine. They were hot on the trail of the artifact and it would bring the Warehouse back and everyone would live happily ever after. Or at least as happily ever after as anyone who worked for the Warehouse ever did, anyway.

The train had come to a full stop while she had been talking herself out of her panic. Artie and Pete were grabbing their stuff from the overhead compartment. Myka hurriedly stood up and joined them. Getting lost in thought was not going to bring Helena back. She had to get her head back in the game and stop worrying. There was nothing that could go wrong.

* * *

Once they got out of the train station they followed the arrow on the pocket watch as closely as they could. Now that they were nearer to the artifact, the arrow was pointing them through buildings and other obstacles. They tried to follow it as best they could, but they did manage to hit a few dead ends along the way, having to retrace their steps and find another way around.

The scenery around them changed from mostly businesses to a more residential area. Houses that had to have been around for quite a while lined up nicely on either side of the street, watching the group walk down the street. Myka almost felt they were alive. Houses as old as these had seen a lot of history and been through more than any human ever had. It almost gave them a personality. A strange thought, but then again her experience with the Warehouse had taught her never to assume just because something was inanimate that it wasn't alive. The Warehouse itself had more personality than some people had.

Eventually they wound their way to a street where the arrow turned again. It now pointed to a house painted white with blue shutters and geraniums planted around it. Myka bit her lip and stared at it for a long moment. There was something about this house, something she couldn't quite place. She shrugged. It was probably just the artifact messing with her senses.

Artie walked up the sidewalk and onto the property of the house, watching the arrow carefully. After circling around a few times he finally settled in front of one of the beds of geraniums right in front of the porch. His eyebrows squished together, considering.

"So that's where the pocket watch is leading us? A flower?" Pete asked.

"Probably more like the area under the flower Pete." Myka rolled her eyes.

"Right, because artifact hunts are always so easy."

Artie finally spoke up. "Hold on, I'm going to see if going behind the house changes anything."

Myka and Pete nodded. Artie waddled off behind the house and came back a few minutes later.

"It changes position along the back of the house and points in towards the house. I think that the artifact might be inside."

"But how do we get inside, Artie? It's not like the Secret Service has any jurisdiction in France. We'll get even crazier looks than normal." Myka pinched the bridge of her nose. Why couldn't the artifact just be under the doormat or something easy?

"Well the Secret Service doesn't have jurisdiction here, but utility companies do."

"And where do we have French utility workers uniforms just stashed away?"

Artie lifted his bag and raised a bushy eyebrow. "Never doubt the bag."

"What has your bag morphed into Mary Poppins bag now?"

"Finally, Myka made a reference that I understand," Pete chimed in.

Myka glared at Pete.

"What? It's not like everyone knows what open sesame is in Arabic." Pete held up his hands.

"Speaking of foreign languages, Myka how is your French?" Artie asked.

Myka shrugged. "Passable, I guess. I'm not going to sound native at all, so the homeowners might think something is up."

Artie waved her concerns away. "Everything will be fine as long as you can get the message across that we need inside the house to check for gas leaks, preferably in the basement if they have one. Artifacts like to hide in basements."

"That I can do, whether they believe our act or not, well that probably depends on Pete not making obnoxious references to baguettes."

"Hey! Baguettes are tasty."

"And also the only French word you know."

"I know croissant too! And don't forget oui oui!"

Myka rolled her eyes. "Tu es bête."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

"Oh come on Myka! You can't just leave me hanging like that."

"Anyway!" Artie exclaimed. "For now I think we need to go find a hotel and spend the night. Our guise as utility workers will be more believable in the morning. Now if you children can stop fighting, why don't we see where the closest hotel is so maybe, just maybe we can get some rest."

"Alright Artie," Pete said starting to walk down the sidewalk to the road.

"Didn't we pass an inn on the way here?" Myka asked, following.

Pete and Artie both shrugged.

"Ok then, I think it was this way."

Myka walked off up the street with both men following her.

The group checked into three small rooms. The old man at the front desk was very chatty, talking with Myka long after they had finished checking in. He complimented her on her French, saying he almost couldn't tell she was American. Myka blushed. She knew it wasn't true, but the old man seemed lonely and eager to please. From what Myka could tell from the lobby the hotel didn't get too many visitors, probably just enough to scrape by, and she never saw the woman featured in so many of the pictures of the man hanging around the lobby.

Myka frowned. Not everyone got to bring their loved ones back from the grave. It was a sad thought.

She talked with the man a few minutes more before heading up to her room. Her room was on the third floor and it had a balcony that overlooked the city. Myka stood out on the balcony for a few minutes just watching the comings and goings of people. Everyone looked so happy. She hoped that soon she could be as happy and carefree as them, perhaps holding her lovers hand, as she saw couple after couple walk by her perch.

Eventually she wandered in and took a shower. Showering seemed to always be the time when thoughts of Helena hit her the hardest. Her mind had nothing else to focus on. It wasn't like it took much of her brain to shampoo her hair. All this international travel sent her back to the first time she had met Helena, in her old home back in England. Holding the woman at gunpoint had been so odd. She had been so furious yet so oddly attracted to the author. She had denied it for months after it happened, but now she could see everything so clearly. She was attracted to Helena since the instant she first saw her, and it hadn't been diminished even by the fact that dropping from the ceiling that same day had hurt like hell.

Myka got out after the hot had turned to cold. She hoped the others had already taken their showers; otherwise they would be cursing her name later. She slipped into some pjs and then under the covers, sighing. She was so tired she felt like she could sleep for a year. If only Helena was here lying with her, perhaps she could.

She rolled over onto her side and started to fall almost instantly asleep. She could almost feel her arm wrapping around Helena's waist and drawing her closer, but Myka knew it had to be a dream.


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note:** *claps happily* We've reached the part I'm really excited for. I hope you guys like it as much as I , review, and enjoy as always.

* * *

Helena woke up in a room that looked quite like her own, but wasn't. Little details were off about it. Her bag wasn't on the floor beside her. Myka's bag wasn't carefully placed on the bed within easy reach. Instead, it was over on the desk chair, with clothing spilling out of it.

She sat up. What exactly was going on? She looked down at her attire. It wasn't the ratty t-shirt and sweats that she had fallen asleep in. Marvelous invention sweat pants, Helena had taken to them readily. Instead, she was in a short, spaghetti strap, blue silk nightgown. She remembered buying it, shortly after she had been unbronzed and had still clung sleeping attire more like what she had been used to back in the 1800s. She had only worn it once, perhaps twice before she traded it in favor of sweats. Myka had loaned her a pair on a mission when she had forgotten to pack pajamas and she hadn't looked back.

The shower in the other room started up. Helena jumped. Who was in the room with her? She slipped out of bed to go investigate.

The door to the bathroom wasn't quite all the way shut. She pushed it open and stepped inside. She froze when her brain fully registered what was in front of her.

Myka. Myka in the shower. Myka _naked_ and in the shower.

She gasped. She didn't think she had ever seen a more beautiful sight.

The other woman turned around at the sound. She watched Myka's green eyes widen to the size of saucers. Her mouth moved soundlessly.

Helena took a step forward. How was this even possible?

Myka stood staring, water running over her body. Helena quite wished she could be that water right now.

"Helena," Myka finally said.

"Myka." She took another step forward.

"What-?" Myka couldn't finish the question.

"I'm trying to figure it out for myself, darling." She stepped into the tub and into the spray of the water. Her nightgown was soaked through in seconds, pasting itself to her body. She lifted a hand to cup Myka's face. She felt so real, so alive. How?

It must be a dream, she concluded somewhere in the back of her mind where she was still capable of rational thought. But even if it was a dream there was something she had to do.

Tears welled up in Helena's eyes. "Myka, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you. I tried. I tried so bloody hard, but it was like there was something holding me back and I just couldn't move or think or anything. All I could do is sit there and watch as you blew up right before my eyes. It was so much worse than watching Christina die all those times in my trips in the time machine. At least then I could fight, try to change things. I don't know why but I just couldn't move and I'll never forgive myself for it."

She tilted her head down and the water threw her hair into her face. She was glad of it. She didn't want Myka, even in a dream, to see her so weak.

Myka's hand lifted her chin so Helena was looking her in the eyes.

"I'm not dead Helena. I'm alive. I was the one who couldn't save you. I couldn't save you." Her voice broke. "I can never save anyone. I was late and Sam got killed. And then I couldn't save you because I just froze. What good am I if I can never save anyone I love?"

Helena pulled Myka into a hug. The women cried on each other's shoulders for a very long time. The water ran cold, but neither felt it. They were too wrapped up in each other.

Finally, with a shudder that shook her whole body Myka pulled back. She smiled through the tears. "But it's ok. I may not have been able to save you back at the Warehouse, but I can save you now. The artifact that the compass is leading us to will save you and the Warehouse both. I'll get to have you in my arms again. Though I'm not sure I ever did. I'm beginning to think Stanford was just a dream that my mind made up to make me feel better about this whole thing, or at least made up to try and make me feel better. It actually ended up making it worse. I finally had and accepted your love only to have it ripped away." Myka sobbed again. "But now it's going to be fine. Fine. Absolutely fine. And even if Stanford was a dream it won't matter because I'll have you and the first thing I'm doing when we get back from Marseilles is running to the B&B and finding you and kissing those beautiful lips of yours."

Myka's finger lightly traced the edges of her lips. Her fingers felt like exquisite fire against her skin. She leaned into the contact.

"And honestly as much as I love this dream right now, I want it to be over so I can walk into that house with the blue shutters and geraniums take the artifact and have you back that much sooner."

The last sentence caught Helena's attention.

"What house, darling?"

"Well it's a couple streets down from the inn we're staying at. It has the artifact in it, so says Artie's pocket watch."

"On Rue Lamartine?"

"Yes." Myka cocked her head. "Wait, how do you know?" She rolled her eyes. "Right, dream. Forgot, you know everything I do." She scowled. "Wait, then why did you need to ask?"

Helena let Myka ponder that out as the room spun around her. There was an artifact in the same house that Christina had died in. One that might save the Warehouse and Myka along with it.

But she hadn't known that before. How could a dream tell her things she didn't know? She frowned. It seemed she was pondering the exact same thing that Myka was. Once more she didn't think that Stanford was a dream as Myka had said earlier, she thought it time travel. And Myka had saved her and she had saved Myka in their respective worlds. The pieces didn't quite fit, and Helena didn't have enough information to start trying to put them together.

Outside the dream Helena could feel herself stirring. There wasn't going to be much more time left in this dream. The pieces for now would have to be left alone.

She pulled Myka's face to hers and kissed her, desperately, deeply. Myka returned the kiss after a startled second, having been drawn out of her thoughts too suddenly. Helena wrapped her arms around Myka's naked frame, hands slowly exploring bare skin. She felt Myka's hands on her hips, warm through the thin fabric of her night gown. She cursed that it was in the way of true skin on skin contact.

The dream scenery started to fade away around them. First, all of the bathroom besides the shower faded. Then the water slowed and then stopped. Next the shower faded away from beneath their feet. Finally, the two of them started to disappear as well. They both faded from the feet up, slowly, almost like a nightmare, but Helena didn't feel the fear. The last thing she felt was Myka's lips on her own.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note:** I know, I know. It's late. But it's the last week of classes and finals are next week, so it's been a little crazy. Also, excuse the French in here, it's probably terrible. I took six years of it in high school, but you would never know…One more thing, this is not the canon world we're in, so I might have played with Artie's character in this world. Only in this world. Not the one that Helena's in. Don't ask why, it's just what my muse told me to do, and she's an…interesting creature. And since this chapter is longer I'm afraid that means it'll be another week before I post a new chapter. I'm sort of running out of reserve chapters, but since the end of the year is a week away, that's not a bad thing. I just have to make sure I have enough left by then to make sure there isn't a big gap between postings, no one likes those. So bear with me. And as per the usual, read, enjoy, and review.

* * *

Myka woke up, lips tingling. She could still almost taste Helena on them. How it was possible she wasn't quite sure, but then again she wasn't quite sure of anything right then.

She sat up and mussed her hair, curls falling every which way. That was truly the most strange and pleasant dream that she had had in ages. Definitely more strange than watching Helena driving across the Badlands while crying, but that dream came in a close second.

It didn't matter. Today was the day they were going to save Helena. She didn't have to keep having strange dreams about the woman; she could have the real thing in her arms while she slept. Myka smiled. She was going to enjoy that thoroughly.

She got up, showered, and dressed, meeting Artie and Pete down in the lobby. Pete was stuffing his mouth with a croissant while Artie looking on, the corners of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. Myka rolled her eyes. No matter what country they were in, no matter what the food, Pete was sure to be shoving some of it in his mouth at some points. Alright, most of the points.

She joined them, smiling brightly. "Are we all set?" she asked.

"Yes." Artie opened his bag and showed her the myriad of things inside. Myka could see a couple of reflective vests, hard hats, work boots, work shirts, jeans, faked ID badges, among other things.

"Do I want to ask how you got all of this or…?" Myka trailed off.

"Don't ask, Mykes. I already did and it didn't have a happy ending."

"Right, never mind then. Shall we?"

The trio walked out the door and towards the house. They stopped and changed into the fake utility worker attire in a secluded alley along the way. Their original clothes went under the tools that Artie had also managed to cram into his bag. Myka wondered just how the older man managed to carry the bag so easily. Years of practice maybe?

They arrived at the house a few minutes later. Myka knocked, stationed at the front of the group since she was going to be doing most of the talking. A petite French woman opened the door a minute later.

"Oui?" she looked over the group questioningly.

"Bonjour, we're here from Société des Eaux de Marseille. We detected a leak in a main line and we're here to fix it." Myka smiled brightly, hoping to make up for her slightly hesitant French.

The woman looked them up and down again and nodded. "D'accord." She stepped back to allow them in.

"Where do you need to work?" The woman asked, once everyone was inside.

"The basement, probably," Myka responded. "If we don't find what we're looking for down there we might have to look elsewhere, but these problems are usually in the basement."

She nodded and led them over to a door. "Let me know if you need anything."

Myka inclined her head. "Merci."

The group descended into the basement down a steep set of stairs. Myka didn't quite know what it was about old houses and borderline dangerous stairways, but they seemed to go hand in hand. She kept her fingers tightly gripped around the railing as she went down.

"Well crap," Pete said as they hit the bottom of the stairs. Boxes were everywhere. It looked like the basement hadn't seen a good spring cleaning in years.

Myka groaned. This was going to take forever. She started to walk towards the first box.

"Wait, maybe the pocket watch can make this a little easier." Artie pulled it out of his bag and looked at the face. He scowled down at it. "Never mind, it seems that now we're so close to the artifact the pocket watch is just a pocket watch. We're on our own."

"Great." Myka flipped open the first box and started weeding through. Antique letters and photos were contained within. Myka looked at a few in passing. The photos were quite old. The people in them were still posed formally as if they were getting a portrait done, not having their picture taken.

She rustled around in the box for a few seconds more before deeming that there was nothing in the box besides paper and photos. Not that an artifact couldn't be paper or photos, but Myka just didn't think that was the case this time.

She moved to close the box, but something caught her eye right before she put the flaps back down. She reopened the box and grabbed out the photo. Her eyes widened. She knew the face in the photo. Helena was pictured, with her little girl Christina at her side. She stared at the photo for a long minute. It couldn't be, could it?

She bit her lip and dug around in the box again. A couple of letters later she had what she wanted. A letter in Helena's script. The letter that asked her cousins if they minded keeping Christina for the summer.

This had to be the house that Christina had been murdered in. Of all the houses in France in all the towns, they had just so happened to walk into the one where Christina was murdered. No, things like that didn't just happen around the Warehouse.

"Guys, I think I found something. Not the artifact, but something important anyway."

Artie came over first and took the letter and photo from her hands. "My god," he said immediately.

Myka gave him a few seconds before she asked, "Artie, what exactly are the chances that we just so happened to walk into the house where Christina was murdered?"

"Very, very, _very_ tiny."

"Whoa, wait what?" Pete asked, looking over Artie's shoulder. His eyes widened. "That's H.G. isn't it?"

Myka nodded. "Do you think this has anything to do with why the artifact is here, Artie?"

"Maybe, let's find it before we call it officially, but really, I don't believe in coincidence."

Myka searched box after box after box without finding anything. The basement had been bigger than they had thought on first glance. How someone didn't clean out their basement for over a hundred year, so couldn't quite fathom. Most of it was just boxes of junk or boxes of letters from people long since dead. She felt like she was trying to find an artifact in a thrift shop that was connected to a library. It could literally be anything she touched if all they found was boxes of letters and photos and the occasional box of broken things.

"Bingo!" Pete called out just as Myka was shutting another box and moving it to the side.

"What Pete?" Artie asked.

He held something in front of him. Myka looked a second before recognizing exactly what it was, a pocket watch chain.

"Are you sure that's it Pete?" Myka asked.

He nodded. "I've got a vibe about it."

"Well how exactly will that save the Warehouse?" Myka got up from the floor and walked over to him, picking up the chain and weighing it in her hands.

Artie pulled out the pocket watch again. "Perhaps it's a bifurcated artifact."

Myka nodded. "Makes sense." She started to walk over to Artie when the pocket watch started to whirr in his hands.

"What's going on?" Pete asked just as something started to project from the watch.

A ghostly image of James Macpherson appeared in front of them. Pete and Myka both jumped back. Artie stepped forward, reaching out.

"James," he said hoarsely.

"Artie." The holographic man smiled warmly.

The pair just stared at each other for a few seconds before Macpherson cleared his throat. "Well I suppose since the projector has activated I assume that the Warehouse has been destroyed."

Artie nodded. "A few days ago."

Macpherson's smiled faded. "Of course. And you must be near the chain as well."

Artie held up the chain. "We just found it."

"Good, good. I'm glad the device I built into the pocket watch worked as planned."

"How did you build a hologram projector into the watch? Last time I checked mechanics weren't exactly your thing, James. You were the charmer, I was the one who handled the gadgets."

Macpherson's smiled returned. "That you were. I admit, I did have quite a bit of help with this project. Mostly, I supplied the idea, a projector to fit inside the watch without interfering with its workings that would not only be sentient, but would only activate in the presence of the chain. Everyone else did all of the work. I suppose my particular talents laid in the fact that I charmed all of them into working for me."

"Why did you implant the projector in the pocket watch in the first place?" Myka asked, finally snapping out of the stupor she'd been in. Honestly holograms shouldn't surprise her so much anymore.

He glanced over at Myka before saying, "Because I felt the need to leave one last message to the world." He looked back at Artie again. "I knew our last parting was probably not going to be on the best terms. Quite honestly I'll be surprised if I'm alive after the plan I cooked up." He took in the look on Artie's face after that statement. "So I am dead." He inclined his head to the side. "Well it was quite the long shot. I suppose revenge against the regents never really would have ended any other way. Being blinded by hate probably did not help anything."

The man paused a moment. "No matter what I did Artie, it was not revenge against you in any way. If anything I suppose I just wanted you to see what a fool you were being. Considering how things turned out, I guess I was the fool. Hindsight does make things quite a lot clearer, I believe."

"James, I'm sorry," Artie said.

"Whatever for?"

"I couldn't help you. I wanted to, but I could never see how. I'm just sorry."

Macpherson's face softened. "Artie, you helped me more than you will ever know. Why would I have given you that pocket watch if you hadn't?" He looked down at the pocket watch. "That little timepiece has been in a Warehouse agent's possession ever since it was discovered and the Regents figured out that it had the potential to save the Warehouse should anything catastrophic happen to it. The only conditions for the pocket watch to work was that the watch had to remain in the area it was supposed to save for the vast majority of the time, basically it must have a home, and the watch must have an owner. At the time of my expulsion from the Warehouse, I was its keeper.

"After I saved Carol with the phoenix I knew what was coming. I hid the watch where the Regents would never find it. They questioned me about it for hours upon hours before they threw me in that wretched prison, but I never let them know where it was. I certainly didn't want them to have a way to save the Warehouse if it was destroyed. Once I escaped I picked it up and carried it with me everywhere I went. It was a symbol of my goals. I wanted to destroy the Warehouse, perhaps not in the sense that the watch was meant to fix, though. The watch is meant to restore physical damage, nothing else. It cannot fix a breakdown of the Warehouse operating system. Were the regents suddenly to disappear, well it wouldn't be able to right that.

I managed to find the other half of the artifact, without the guidance system built into the pocket watch and I hid that as well. Once that was done I went about plotting my revenge and amassing the resources to carry out such a plan. I wanted to be the only one able to resurrect the Warehouse if my plan somehow went awry and the Warehouse was destroyed. I did not want the artifacts to be destroyed, on the contrary, I wanted to be able to use them, to spread them throughout the world so they could be used for the good of the world. It was only practical to have such a backup plan.

"Somewhere along the line, though, that backup plan morphed into something different. Actually, it was around the time I was going to start the first stages of my plan. I found myself gathering the scientists and engineers needed to build this projector. I took the chain from its original hiding place and hid it here. Did you know this is the house where H.G. Wells's daughter was killed?"

Artie nodded. "There were old family letters in some of the boxes."

"Ah, I see. This place in and of itself was a safeguard in its own right. I knew I was going to be reviving Wells. I was quite sure she was going to be quite unstable. I did not know if she was going to end up destroying the Warehouse or not. She knew of the pocket watch, she knew what it did, I believe she might have even been its keeper for a time, so I knew she could not get her hands on the watch or the chain. If I had left the chain where it was she could have perhaps found it. Better to keep the chain in the one place that I knew she would never set foot in again."

Macpherson gestured around him. "What better place than the house where her daughter was murdered? Once it was protected from her the scientists pulled through with the hologram projector, implanting it in the watch. The tests they had to do to get my personality onto this bloody thing were quite ridiculous, but I see now they were quite worth it."

The British man laughed. "You know I did not really know why I was doing all of these things, really. I rationalized it away under a backup plan, but that wasn't the case. I needed there to be a way to right my wrongs, to save everything that I hated so dearly. I needed a way to somehow to say I'm sorry to the one person I had wronged the most. I honestly have no idea why I did the things that I did, perhaps all the anger I felt in my body didn't transfer onto this hologram, but I'm sorry Artie. I think in the back of my mind all along I've always been sorry, it was just drowned out by hate."

Artie blinked a few times. "It's ok James. We all make mistakes."

Macpherson smiled sadly. "Not everyone makes mistakes as big as mine, but that you anyway Artie. It is lovely to hear you say those words. I thought I would never hear them. I suppose giving you that pocket watch was the first step towards them. I'm so glad that I did."

For a moment Myka thought the two men were going to hug, but then she remembered that was an impossibility. Passing through a hologram wasn't a thoroughly pleasant experience either. She bit her lip. She had found what had been bugging Artie she guessed. Macpherson after all this time. How odd.

The hologram started to fade around the edges. The pair blinked and Artie looked down at the watch, flicking it in hopes of getting it to work fully again.

"Right, I do not suppose the project had much of a battery to go with it since it was so small. Before it gives out completely, Artie, I must mention that the pocket watch and chain will only work if the damage done to the Warehouse is truly catastrophic. I'm not quite sure it will even work if the Warehouse has been almost leveled. The regents always made it sound as if it would work only if Pandora's Box was compromised and the world had truly lost all hope. I suppose you can try and test that assumption if Pandora's Box managed to survive whatever took out the Warehouse, but it's not guaranteed to work. Had my plan destroyed the Warehouse I was planning on taking out Pandora's Box to assure that the watch worked, but I think that's beside the point now."

The image flickered again, barely coming back this time. Macpherson smiled at Artie. "Goodbye old friend." The hologram wavered and then finally went out.

Artie griped the pocket watch tightly, closing his eyes. After a few long seconds he opened his eyes again and looked at the two other agents. Pete spoke up first.

"Artie, what happens if it doesn't work? Pandora's Box wasn't broken in the blast."

"We'll just have to see, now won't we?" The man snapped, a little harsher than usual.

"This was our only hope of getting the Warehouse back, though."

"We'll just find another way. There has to be another way."

Myka thought she heard Artie mutter something about endless wonder actually being useful for once, but she wasn't quite sure.

"Why don't we just try the pocket watch before we start jumping into what ifs," Myka said.

Artie nodded, took out the chain and attached it to the pocket watch. The hands on the watch wavered from the time they had been stuck at since the Warehouse had blown up, and finally started to click forward again. The three of them looked at it for a few more seconds.

"What do you think that means?" Pete asked.

Myka had a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Call Leena, see if anything happened."

Pete took out the Farnsworth and hit the call button. The woman picked up after a few rings.

"Hey Pete, what's up?"

"Hey, crazy question, is the Warehouse back?"

Leena paused, face glazing over like it did whenever she read someone's aura. She shook her head. "No, why?"

Pete sighed loudly. "Well, I suppose that answered the question if the artifact worked or not. Sorry Leena, we'll tell you everything later. For now I think we have to start from scratch." Pete shut the Farnsworth. "Now what?"

Myka sunk to the floor. Now what indeed.

Myka barely remembered the walk back to the hotel. She vaguely recalled Pete helping her up, arm around her waist, supporting her. She didn't have to will to stand. Why should she? The hope of getting Helena back had been snatched from her yet again.

"-kes. Mykes!" Pete whispered into her ear. "Mykes, we need you to work your French magic so we can get out of here."

Myka nodded numbly. She could do that. She wanted to be out of this god forsaken basement and alone in her room at the hotel. She could pull it together at least enough to mumble something about the pipes being fixed.

They ascended the stairs. The woman heard their footsteps and met them at the top.

"Is everything ok?" she asked.

Myka nodded. "Everything's fixed. You're good to go."

The woman smiled. "Merci." She led them out of the house.

When the cool air hit her face Myka felt herself collapsing again. Pete was there in an instant, holding her up again. She should be grateful to have such a good partner, but she couldn't feel anything besides grief. Perhaps the gratitude would come later when she could feel again. If she could feel again.

They walked back to the hotel, Pete holding Myka up, Artie holding the pocket watch in a vice grip. He looked like he thought the pocket watch would disappear if he so much let it from his sight. Myka supposed she could understand that.

The group changed in the same alley they had a couple hours before. Pete helped Myka change before he changed himself. Myka couldn't bring herself to care that he had just seen more of her than she had ever wanted him to. What was the point? It wasn't like Pete hadn't inhabited her body at one time. None of it mattered now.

They walked into the hotel. The old man behind the desk shot her a concerned look.

"Is everything ok?" he asked.

Myka shook her head and allowed Pete to continue shuffling her towards her room. Once there she collapsed into a ball, not bothering to shed any of her clothing. She drew her knees to her chest and started to sob. The sobs wracked her body, shaking the bed below her. She felt like she was breaking, and maybe she was. She couldn't help but think that was a good thing. She couldn't stand the pain as a whole, breaking into pieces might distribute the pain. Or at least she could only hope it did as the sobs ripped her further and further apart.

What felt like hours later, the tears ran dry and Myka couldn't cry anymore. She didn't feel any better. She just felt empty and alone. Her feelings wouldn't even keep her company. She closed her swollen eyes. Perhaps sleep would be merciful and take her away. She no more wished for it before the blackness took her. She could've sobbed again in relief.


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note: **I know, day late, dollar short, blah, blah, blah. But now finals are over…or they will be in a couple of hours. So everything should go back nice and regular now. Though this is another chapter that's longer, but I might post on Sunday anyway depending on how much I can get written in the next few days. I have everything plotted out I just actually have to write it. So once I actually get my head in the game it won't take me long. Anyway, read, review, enjoy, you all know the drill by now.

* * *

Helena woke up smiling. The expression felt strange on her face. She felt like she hadn't smiled in a very, very long time. Had it really only been a few days since a smile had lit her face? It was strange how grief made the time pass so slowly.

She sat up and stretched, sighing contentedly. Everything wasn't quite right yet, no there were still pieces to put together before that happened, but Helena for the first time could see that there would be a way to solve all the problems. All she had to do was fit those puzzle pieces together, and she was quite good at puzzles.

Helena knew the dreams she was having weren't quite dreams. She had figured that out for herself within the dream, or whatever it was, last night. It wasn't like she was unfamiliar with such things. The dreams she and Myka had had before all of this turned out to be more than dreams as well. But the question was why? And the dreams she was having now weren't quite the same as those before. They were more like a separate world they were a part of, some place where realities crossed. And somehow the pen was connected back to all of this. But how exactly?

She needed more information, to lay more pieces of the puzzle out in front of her. Helena bit her lip. She knew what she should do, but… She swallowed. She just spent hours the previous day staring at that house. She had even considered going in there. It was stupid of her to feel so reluctant now. She would go and look for the artifact Myka had talked about and perhaps she might add a piece of knowledge to her puzzle pieces in the process.

She got up off the bed. She looked into the mirror across the room and cringed. Well, she was going to go find the artifact, but not looking like she did. She doubted anyone would let her into their homes looking like this. She ran a hand through her hair, only making it worse. A shower would fix most of the mess, at least enough to make her presentable. Getting Myka back would fix the rest. It was amazing she hadn't frightened off small children on her travels looking as she did.

She snorted and gathered her things for a shower.

An hour later she walked out the door of her room and down into the lobby of the hotel. The old man smiled at her. She returned the smile, the expression not feeling quite so awkward this time.

"You're looking better today," the old man observed.

Helena nodded. "I feel quite a lot better."

"I'm glad to hear that."

Helena grabbed a croissant. She bit her lip for a second before going with a hunch. "Do you perchance know the people who live in a house on Rue Lamartine with blue shutters and geraniums out front? I believe the exact address is 33 Rue Lamartine if I remember correctly."

The old man squinted, thinking. His eyebrows shot up after a second. "Oh, I think I do know the place you're talking about. I walk by it on the way to the market. I've seen the family who lives there, had a passing conversation the wife, but other than knowing they have a daughter and a dog that likes to dig up their flowers, I don't know them really. Why do you ask?"

"The home they live in used to be a family home. My mother thinks that something important could've been left in the house and begged me to go and check. Since she's been so sick recently I didn't have the heart to tell her no." The lie rolled easily off her tongue. She felt a little bad lying to this man who had shown her nothing but kindness, but it was necessary in this case. Anyone not associated with the Warehouse would have a hard time believing she was from the Victorian era. The last thing she wanted was to end up in an asylum at this juncture.

The old man nodded and glance up to one of the many pictures of his wife on the walls. "I know what you mean." He swallowed. "I hope you find whatever you're looking for."

Helena smiled again. "Thank you."

* * *

She walked out of the lobby and down the streets to the house. Again she stood in front of the house, just staring for a few long moments. She could do this. She would. For Myka.

She took a deep breath and walked up the side walk and to the door. Her fist shook a little as she lifted it to knock. She hoped someone was home. She wasn't quite sure how long it would take her to work up the courage to come back here again if they weren't.

A small woman with blonde hair opened the door. "Yes?" she asked.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt your day, but, this is going to sound sort of crazy, this used to be an old family home and my mother sent me back here to look for something she's positive she left here years ago when she was a little girl. She's been quite sick lately, so I couldn't really say no to her request."

The woman smiled. "We'll do anything for our mother's, won't we?" She stepped back from the door. "Come in. I don't know if you'll find anything, but I don't think it will hurt to look."

She smiled at the woman. "Thank you so much."

Helena stepped inside the house. She almost didn't recognize it. The underlying architecture was still the same, but almost everything else had changed. New wall paper, carpet over the wood floors, different decorations, updated light fixtures, she could almost imagine this wasn't the home Christina was murdered in. Almost. There was enough to trigger her memories to replay the scenes from that day.

The woman cleared her throat, interrupting Helena's thoughts.

"Oh my, terribly sorry. It's just it's almost exactly how my mother described it. Being here makes the stories she used to tell me so real."

"I see. My mother never was one for stories. I envy you in that. I feel like there were a lot of things I never knew about her."

Helena contained a snort. Her mother probably could've put the woman's to shame in the cold distance department. She fawned over Charles, but everything directed towards her had been a mild at best. She wasn't exactly what her mother had wished for in a daughter. Add to that Victorian era sensibilities…well it had only made it worse. She hoped she had been the complete opposite for Christina, but she didn't really know if she had succeeded.

"I'm sorry, I never even asked your name. I'm Cécile."

"Helena," she replied automatically. Damn, she thought. That hadn't been smart of her, giving her real name. Whatever, it was done now.

"Quite a pretty name, old fashioned as well."

Helena smiled. "Yes, my mother did prefer older names. She found them to be much more proper than most of the names floating around at the time I was born." Yes, her mother had hated lower class names such as Bessie and Dot. How many times had she heard that rant when she was pregnant with Christina? Far too many.

"Would you like a cup of coffee? I would offer tea, but we never actually drink it around here."

"Coffee is fine. And here I thought I had gotten rid of the English accent in my French long ago."

Cécile smiled. "Not quite, but I'm an English teacher by trade. I've conversed with many English people who've had nearly flawless French, but I think an accent is harder to ditch than most people think. I don't think most people would notice it, though."

Helena nodded. "Interesting."

The sat at the table idly conversing over coffee for a half an hour before things turned back to the subject at hand. It seemed Helena had truly gained the woman's trust enough for her to allow her to roam about her home looking for whatever it was she came to find. Considering her quick initial invite into her home Helena had thought it would have taken less time, but people did surprise her now and again. Myka certainly had.

"The only place I can think of that might have something that's been left from previous owners would be the basement. The top floors of the house were completely cleaned out, but the basement had some boxes filled with things left over from who knows when. It's probably your best bet." Cécile stood up.

"Well that's a good a place as any to start looking. Thank you again for letting me look by the way. I'm not sure many people would let a stranger into their home to look for something their mother had lost years ago." Helena stood as well.

The woman shrugged. "You aren't a stranger now. The basement is this way."

She led Helena down a short hallway to a door. Cécile opened the door and gestured for Helena to go down.

"I have a few things to do upstairs, but if you need anything just yell. Ok?"

"Sounds good." It was absolutely perfect actually, but she didn't need to let her host know that.

She descended the stairs and came out at the bottom, surrounded by more boxes than she had seen anywhere but the Warehouse. This was going to be an interesting hunt. She approached the first box and started to dig.

Immediately she recognized her own writing on paper yellowed with age. She quickly glanced over one of the papers. They were letters she had written her cousin the year Christina had been murdered. She swallowed hard. How had these letters survived so long in a box in a basement? Surely they should have crumbled to dust by now, but here they were looking barely worse for the ware. It seemed time had a way of preserving unimportant things.

Helena kept digging through the box, finding photos mixed in along the bottom. They were mainly of her cousin's family, but there were a few of her, all terrible pictures of her, all stuffy and posed, photos she had gotten to please the family and really nothing else. She much preferred the spontaneous photos of the modern day. Then there was one, small photo of Christina. Tears sprang to her eyes. It was a different photo than the one she kept in her locket. Christina was older in this photo, perhaps it was taken that fateful summer. The photo had no date on it, so she wasn't quite sure. She held the photo to her face. Here her baby was so close but so far away.

She slipped the photo into her pocket and kept on searching. Helena wished she had someone else here to help her search. She was sure it would go much faster, especially since she had no idea what exactly she was looking for. Then again, that was like most artifact hunts she supposed.

Boxes slowly piled up in the pile she had dedicated as her searched pile. Most of the boxes contained the detritus of life, old paper work, photos, broken things put away to be fixed at a later date. There was nothing particularly artifact like about anything she touched. She kept digging, hoping that somewhere along the line she would get lucky and not have to search every single box only to come up with nothing.

A few hours and a dozen boxes later she pulled out a pocket watch chain. She smiled. Myka had said something about a pocket watch. She was almost positive that this was the artifact that she had talked about going to find. Helena picked herself up off the floor, brushed herself off, and started to climb the stairs.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Cécile's voice floated in from the kitchen.

Helena headed towards her voice. "I did." She held up the pocket watch chain. "My mother's grandfather's pocket watch chain. She'll be so delighted I actually managed to find it. How I actually had the luck to find such a thing after so many years I'll never know, but you were definitely part of it."

Cécile smiled. "I'm glad I could help."

* * *

Helena spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with Cécile, but her mind wasn't really on the conversation. She thanked her lucky stars she had learned to be able to maintain polite conversation with little, if any thought. Her mind, instead, was on the pocket watch chain now laying in her pocket. Occasionally she would slip her hand inside her pocket to run a finger over the smooth metal. What exactly could this artifact do to restore the Warehouse? And how exactly was she supposed to get it to work?

She left the house at dusk, thanking Cécile again. Unwittingly the woman might have just given her the ticket to solve the puzzle, or for lack of that, save Myka in this world. She would be happy either way.

The walk to the hotel was a blur. Her mind was far too busy to catalogue the streets she had walked a hundred times before. She hadn't been able to think of a way to activate the artifact. Perhaps it was a bifurcated artifact. Myka had said the pocket watch had been pointing to the house, perhaps it was the other half. In that case she would need to contact the person who had the other half in order to get it to work.

She would have to call Artie. That was not a call she was looking forward to.

She swept up to her room with a brief hello to the old man. Helena walked over to Myka's bag and picked it up. Myka's Farnsworth was in here. She knew it was. But how exactly was Artie going to react getting a call from a dead agent's Farnsworth?

Probably about as bad as he was going to react to Helena calling him.

She started to dig into Myka's bag, fingers coming across the cool metal quickly. She pulled the device out and hit the call button before she could change her mind. It started ringing immediately.

"Hello?" A gruff voice answered. The man wasn't turned towards the screen. It appeared that he was looking at his computer screen instead.

"Hello Artie," she said smoothly.

The man whipped around and caught sight of Helena. "You!"

"Yes, it is me."

"What are you doing with Myka's Farnsworth?"

"Honestly, Artie, do you really have to ask that question. I took it. Along with most of Myka's things, or have you not figured that out yet?"

"Oh, we figured it out. Why did you take her stuff? What evil plot are you planning now?"

Helena fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Even though you won't believe me there is no evil plot. I took Myka's things because, quite honestly, I wanted the last remnants of her to be with me. I don't know what evil plot could be pulled off with a few button down shirts and a Farnsworth."

"Fine then. Why are you calling me?"

Helena held up the pocket watch chain. "I found this during my travels. I think it might be part of a bifurcated artifact. One that could possibly save the Warehouse and Myka."

The man perked up.

"Oh, interested in what I have to say now, are we?" A little bit of Helena's ire slipped out. She quickly toned it down. "Anyway, I think the other half might be the pocket watch you have. I need to know about what it does to make sure this will work and how to activate them."

Artie nodded. "I'll search the Warehouse database, give me a sec." He glanced back at the computer screen and started to type something in. A few seconds of waiting and he turned back to Helena.

"It looks like the pocket watch I have originally belonged to Sir Isaac Newton. The Warehouse acquired it not long after his death. After that they figured out that the pocket watch could potentially be able to resurrect the Warehouse in the most dire of circumstances. Pandora's box being destroyed dire circumstances."

Helena's eyes widened. "But it wasn't destroyed, was it?"

Artie shook his head. "No, it wasn't. Barely. It says that the pocket watch may or may not work otherwise. It hasn't been tested. But it says here the more severe the damage is to the world the more likely it is to work. Something to do with every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction."

"Physics. It all comes back to physics," Helena muttered to herself.

"What?"

Helena shook her head. "Nothing, Artie. I'll be on the first plane I can back to South Dakota. We'll see if reuniting the chain and watch will do anything. It's worth a try."

Artie nodded and Helena's screen went blank.

She put the Farnsworth carefully back in Myka's bag. Well, she supposed she needed to call the airport and set up her return trip. As soon as possible would probably be best, but she didn't move towards the phone.

She had a piece that might fit something things together. Physics. They had found the pen at Stanford in the physics lecture hall. It had been an older, fancier pen, one that a professor might have owned. A professor had started the pen drawer. The pen was probably theirs. What if it did somehow had to tie into physics? It had to. But the version of physics Helena knew didn't tie into this at all. There had been many an advance while she was bronzed. Had physics really gone so far in a hundred years that it could explain what was happening to them? There was only one person she could ask. Myka. And for that, she needed to be asleep.

Helena bit her lip. The call to the airport could wait until the morning. As late as it was she figured it wouldn't get her much of anywhere to call tonight anyway.

She changed quickly into her pjs and laid down, willing for sleep to overtake her. It came, slowly and grudgingly, sinking her into the world of dreams.


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note: **I have returned! I'm sorry these past few weeks have been a bit hinky, but now I'm actually home and my friends have finished going "OH MY GOD YOUR HOME." So, everything should calm down, and return to normal. I mean it this time. Anyway, I'm playing with physics. My knowledge of complex physics is minimum at best, so if anyone reading this is a physics major I am sorry. Also, this chapter starts to earn the M rating. Starts, it doesn't quite finish, but we'll get there I promise. So read, enjoy, review. Ah! Almost 100 followers, so exciting.

* * *

Myka floated forever and an instant in the darkness. It was soothing. Painless. Everything she wanted it to be. She could stay there forever.

But the world wasn't going to let her. She felt herself being pulled towards something. The darkness around her grew steadily lighter. The light hurt. She didn't want to go. Didn't want to leave her cocoon. Nothing could possibly be worth leaving the painless environment.

She felt arms around her, a warm body up against hers. She started to cry. This was her own form of torture, every night her dreams would haunt her showing her what she couldn't have. Oh god, how she wished she could descend into blackness again. She didn't want Helena's arms around her. Not like this.

Myka tore herself out of Helena's arms and walked out onto the balcony. This was as far as her dream would let her get. There was no door to the rest of the hotel. Only the door to the balcony and the one of the bathroom. It seemed like her mind wanted her to be as tormented as possible.

"Myka?" came Helena's voice from the other room.

She didn't answer. Desperate was her hope that Helena wouldn't find her. But it was small room. And she knew that Helena wouldn't stop until she found her.

A second later Helena stuck her head out of the door. "Oh there you are Myka. I wondered-" She stopped short when she saw the tears running down Myka's cheeks. "Darling what's the matter?"

Helena was at her side in a second. She took Myka's face in her hands and wiped away the tears with her thumbs. Myka tried to jerk her face back. She didn't need comfort from some strange dream. She just needed to find a way back into the darkness.

"Myka, what is wrong? What happened?"

She shook her head.

"Are you hurt? Did something go wrong during the artifact hunt? What? Darling, I just want to help you."

The tender, soothing tones of Helena's voice broke Myka even further. Tears started flowing down her cheeks faster than Helena could wipe them away. The author pulled her into a hug.

"Myka, baby, whatever it is I will fix it. You just have to tell me," Helena whispered into Myka's ear.

She buried her face into Helena's neck and sobbed. "How can you fix it Helena, you're dead. You're dead and the stupid pocket watch didn't work. I can't bring you back. I can't save you. You are my problem. I love you too much to let you go, but I have to." She dissolved into incoherent sounds of anguish.

Helena hugged her harder, rocking slightly from side to side. "Myka, I'm not dead, at least where I am. I think the pen we found at Stanford has something to do with this, and I think its artifact abilities have something to do with physics, but I'm not well versed enough in modern physics to know what. These dreams are tied into it too, as well as the dreams we had before, of each of us saving the Warehouse to save the other. Do you know anything about physics that could maybe tie these things together?"

Myka snorted. "If I did would it matter?

Helena pulled back so she could look into her eyes. "Myka," she stopped for a second just to stare into the other woman's eyes. "I know you just had your last hope ripped out from under you. I know it's almost impossible to let yourself hope after that. That it's just better to become cynical and deny that anything good ever happens, but Myka good things can happen. You can have hope. You have to have hope, because without it you descend into this sort of madness that won't let you go until you let yourself hope again. I won't let you descend into that madness. I don't care if I have to cross universes to prevent you from taking the road I did after Christina. I absolutely refuse to let it happen."

Myka stared at Helena, enraptured. The tears had stopped flowing down her cheeks without her notice. She never had seen Helena look quite so beautiful as she had just a moment ago. Her face had lit up in a strange new way while she had been speaking, face glowing with passion, conviction, and love.

"Helena…" she whispered. Part of her wanted to give in, to let her be persuaded by this dream version of Helena to hope again. But the other side was powerful, blackness licked at the edges of her mind. She didn't know if she was truly strong enough to fend off the blackness again. She had managed when Sam had died, but just barely. Helena's death was so much worse.

"Myka, listen to me." Helena shook Myka lightly. "Don't over think this. You can't or you'll just end up in the exact same place you started. Hope isn't about thought, hope is about belief. Belief requires no thought. That's why hope is so powerful. There needs to be no backing to hope. It just is."

Myka's hand came up to Helena's face. It felt so real. How could a dream feel this real? She knew when she woke up she would still feel Helena's skin under her, feel her thumbs on her cheeks, every place Helena touched in this dream would bear the mark of being touched. What dreams possibly could do such a thing?

She remembered her dream of the Warehouse blowing up, where she saved Helena not the other way around. She remembered feeling the fire on her skin. Remembered the feeling of death. If what this dream Helena said was true, it had played out exactly as in her dreams, just not in the world where Myka was.

…Not in the _universe_ where Myka was. The realization hit her like a freight train.

"Helena there is a branch of physics that could explain this. Oh my god, it's so obvious why didn't I think of it before?"

"What, Myka?"

"String theory, it's supposed to be the unifying theory of everything basically, joining general relativity and quantum mechanics. Part of the theory is that there are eleven parallel universes right next to our own. There are other parts that say each major decision we make spins off into a new world where we made the opposite decision that we did. Some of those worlds reunite, because regardless of the decision we made the outcomes were more or less the same. Right now we could be in different universes from the one we were originally in. Oh my god, Stanford wasn't a dream, was it? Oh my god, that pen in the physics lecture hall! It's got something to do with this, doesn't it? What if we find it again in our respective universes? Do you think it would take us home?" Myka was practically jumping with excitement.

"I honestly don't know. Perhaps we should ask Artie? He might be able to do some research based on the characteristics we give him. If nothing pops up, it can't hurt to go after the pen. I mean it was making college students disappear." Helena smiled. Myka was back from the brink.

Myka hugged Helena again, hard. "Oh my god! Helena, if this works out we'll be back in a universe where nothing went wrong! The Warehouse will be fine. We'll be together. Everything will be perfect."

Helena didn't know if she had ever seen Myka this giddy.

"Yes, that will be quite perfect." Helena drew back from Myka enough to kiss her.

Myka's head might as well have exploded. So many feelings and sensations coursed through her. Somehow this was even more intense than the kiss in the dream last night, and she had been completely naked.

Myka gasped into the kiss as the realization hit her. If there were parallel universes and her and Helena were in two different universes, these were more than dreams. Somehow their minds were still connected across space and time, if only while they were asleep. And if that were true the dreams were real in a sense. And that meant Helena had seen her naked last night.

Her cheeks heated to near nuclear levels. She pulled back from the kiss, breathing heavily.

Helena noticed her blood red cheeks. "What's the matter, love?" The predatory glint in Helena's eyes was slightly terrifying.

"Oh, nothing I was just thinking that these dreams are linking us between universes, and I don't really know how string theory applies to that."

Helena smiled slowly. "Some people are linked no matter what. Is that really _all _you were thinking of?"

Myka nodded, a bit too enthusiastically for it to be the truth.

"Pardon me, darling, if I don't believe you."

Myka's blush deepened.

"Come now, tell me."

"It's just-I-um-well…" Myka trailed off.

"Could it possibly have something to do with last night's dream? Perhaps you were thinking something along the lines of 'if the dreams are real then Helena saw me naked?'"

Myka flicked her eyes away from Helena unintentionally.

Helena started to laugh, musically, wonderfully. She leaned in to whisper in Myka's ear. "Don't worry darling, I plan to see you naked on more than one occasion. I dare say it shall be common place." She nibbled on Myka's ear lobe.

A shiver travelled down Myka's spine. This woman could affect her like no one else.

Helena's mouth started to travel down her neck, teeth and tongue working something close to magic. Myka melted into her touch, her face heating now from something completely different from embarrassment. Helena's teeth found her pulse point and she gasped. Oh god, she wished she could stay in this dream forever.

She tangled her hands in Helena's black as night hair, pulling the woman's mouth up to her own. Helena's tongue dove hungrily inside her mouth, exploring, teasing, and generally turning Myka's brain to mush. She felt Helena's hands slide up to cup her breasts and she moaned into Helena's mouth.

God she was on fire.

A thumb caressed her nipple through the thin night shirt she was wearing. Myka arched into the contact. She wanted more. Needed more. She needed Helena like she needed no one else.

One of Helena's hand slipped under her night gown, caressing her overheated skin lightly. Oh god, she needed to touch Helena's skin. Her hands slipped from the woman's hair and down to the hem of the woman's short night dress. Her hands slid under the silky material to touch softer skin. She moaned again. Helena cut off the sound, biting her lip.

Myka's hands moved to rest of Helena's bare waist, content for now to just be touching bare skin. God, if she didn't cool down soon she might explode. Helena tugged her night gown up even father, revealing the smooth skin of Myka's stomach.

Myka broke the kiss and yanked off the night shirt. It was only getting in the way. Helena looked her up and down, expression resembling that of a wolf looking at her prey. The way Helena's eyes traveled her body, though, didn't make her feel like a piece of meat. Standing there in only her underwear, she felt beautiful.

Helena hesitated a minute. "Are you sure of this Myka," she asked huskily.

"More than anything."

Helena was back to touching her within a second, shoving her up against the wall. Myka barely felt the rough wall behind her, all that mattered was Helena's touch. A hand wrapped in her curls, pulling enough just to be on the pleasant side of pain. The other was back teasing her nipple. Myka found herself unable to think anymore.

She didn't notice the world around them start to fade. The balcony faded to blackness, the wall fading from behind her, none of it registered. Not until Helena's body started to fade from hers did she notice anything. She opened her eyes just in time to see Helena mouth "Bloody hell!" before disappearing completely.

Myka woke in her hotel in Marseilles with a frustrated scream.


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note: **Update, on an actual Sunday. Or close enough. I forget what day it is already and I've already been home a week, so forgive me. I've actually started to write more on this story, huzzah. I hope I'll get it done sometime soon, but we'll see how the muse wants it to go. And also, this story has over 100 followers now. You guys are awesome. I can't even believe it. AHHH. :D But anyway, as always, read, review if you would like, and enjoy.

* * *

Helena awoke, a pout fixed on her face. Well that just wasn't fair, not allowing them to finish like that. She pressed her legs together to alleviate some of her arousal. It didn't do much.

Helena ran a hand through her hair. She supposed counting on a dream to give them enough time to do what they wished had been sort of a bad plan, but then again she didn't regret anything. The lesson was learned for next time. She would just have to wait until Myka was corporeally back in her arms. How frustrating.

Helena got up and took a cold shower. That took care of most everything physical. She wished she could say the same thing for mental, but there were other things to take care of that. She had things to do. She still had to call the airport and arrange her flight back home. That would take her mind off of other, more pleasurably frustrating things.

She walked back out to the other room in her towel and sat down on the edge of the bed to make the call. The people at the French airport were significantly less helpful than the woman she had dealt with back in Illinois, but that was par for the course. She ended up with a flight time that would just give her enough time to get to the gate is she left Marseilles on the next train which was in a half hour.

She stood up, toweling off her hair quickly before dropping the towel to the floor. She gathered her stuff in a hurry, pulling on clothes in the process. Five minutes later she was ready to go, still wet hair creating wet spots on her blouse. She frowned. She hated looking anything less than put together. At least when was in her right mind, anyway.

She walked out the door, and down into the lobby. She put her key onto the desk. The old man looked up at her.

"Leaving already?" he asked.

"I found what I was looking for. I have to get it back to my mother as soon as possible." She smiled brightly.

The man cocked his head, like he didn't quite believe her. His lips turned up in a knowing smile, but he took the key and said, "I hope she's very happy that you managed to find whatever it is after all these years."

"I'm sure she will be. Thank you."

"You're welcome. If you're ever in Marseilles again be sure to stop by."

Helena nodded. "I shall keep that in mind."

She jogged quickly to the train station, her and Myka's bags pounding against her back. She managed to catch the train but just barely. When she was settled in she took out Myka's Farnsworth again and dialed Artie.

"Are you on your way back?" Artie asked.

"Why hello to you too, Artie. And yes, I am on my way back. I'm on the train from Marseilles right now."

"Good. When's your flight back?"

"Let's put it this way, I have enough time to clear security, but only barely."

"Even better."

"But Artie, I had another reason for calling other than telling you my travel plans. This is going to sound odd, but I suppose no odder than most things that go on at the Warehouse. Artie, I believe I've been the victim of an artifact, one that deals with some quite complicated physics."

"What makes you think this?"

"The fact that I wasn't a part of this world until the Warehouse exploded. I thought it was time travel for the longest time, but, as I have learned, events do not change in time travel. In the world I came from the Warehouse did not blow up. We managed to save everything by wrapping the bomb in Gandhi's dhoti."

"Wait, Gandhi's dhoti? That wouldn't…" Artie trailed off as confusion turned to understanding. "How did you know that would work?"

"I quite forget who suggested it. It was understandably a high stress event. I think it was either you or Myka. I remember Pete was too busy going at the bomb with a blow torch to be much on the critical thinking side of things."

"Sounds like him."

"As I recall he was doing the same thing in this world. But anyway, when I was transported Myka and I were on a mission at Stanford. A group of college students had disappeared without a trace. We traced everything back to the physics lecture hall, where we found a pen. When we touched it both Myka and I got sick almost immediately. We ended up fainting and when I woke up I was in this world, with the Warehouse about to blow. It took me this long just figure out what exactly what was happening and that perhaps they could be fixed. Myka and I think that perhaps if we can find the pen again we might be able to return to our original world."

Artie typed in a few things to the computer in front of him. "Do you know anything else about the artifact?"

"Myka said it probably had something to do with string theory I think it was. I'm not entirely sure about the new branches of physics."

Artie nodded. "I'll look into it, see if I can find anything. In the meantime get here so we can try the pocket watch and chain and see if we can make everything right in this world."

Helena frowned. "From what I understood from Myka it didn't work where she is."

Artie scowled. "Well, we won't be sure about how it works in this one until we try."

Helena nodded. "Fair enough."

The screen went dark before she could say another word.


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note:** Forgive me if this is really mistake ridden. I'm not sure how focused I was checking over this. My aunt's in the ER right now so my brain is sort of elsewhere. But since I'm on kid watching duty and needed something to distract myself I wanted to make sure you guys got this chapter on time. So read, review, and enjoy as always.

* * *

Myka let the cold water run over her. It was definitely not what she wanted to be running over her right now. She shivered at the memory of Helena's hands on her skin. Or perhaps it really was just the water. She was quite cold.

She shut off the water and stepped out of the tub. She walked out to the bedroom and sat on her bed in just a towel. What was she going to do now? She had to tell Artie, but she knew she had heard her rambling about being whammied by an artifact before and thought she had just been a little off from the explosion. How was she supposed to prove that she hadn't been rambling crazily?

She bit her lip. It wasn't going to seem like she was quite stable now either considering yesterday. This was not going to be easy. She sighed heavily.

Helena was worth all of this though. She would find a way to prove to Artie that she wasn't crazy, somehow. If she couldn't, well she would just try to find the pen on her own. She would start at Stanford again and branch out from there. Whatever it took until she was back with Helena.

And then the end of a dream wouldn't ruin everything.

She sighed again and started to get ready for the day.

Pete knocked on her door an hour later. "Mykes?" she heard through the door. "Are you up?"

She walked over and opened the door. "Obviously," she said once they were face to face.

Pete looked surprised for a second before he managed to school his face into a better expression. "Oh, well Artie wants to leave soon. He said we should be back at the B&B to try and look for other solutions for getting the Warehouse back."

Myka nodded. "Ok, I'm almost ready to go." Pete turned to go. "And Pete." He turned around to face Myka again. "Thanks for helping me back yesterday," she said softly.

His face softened. "No problem, Mykes."

He walked back down the hall and into his own room.

Myka started shoving her stuff back into her bag. She could be such a slob when she wasn't paying attention. She found one of her socks under the bed. She didn't even understand how that had happened, but she just threw the sock in with the rest of her stuff and shrugged. There were more important things to solve right now.

Another knock on her door stopped her packing. She walked over and opened the door to find Artie.

"Hi Artie," she said.

"Myka, you're looking…better."

"Yeah." Myka thought about adding more, about trying to discuss the pen again with Artie, but something held her tongue.

"Are you going to be ok?"

She nodded. "I'll be fine, Artie. When are we leaving?"

"Are you done packing?"

"I've got a few things more to go, shouldn't take me more than few minutes."

Artie nodded. "Then we'll leave as soon as you and Pete are done packing."

Myka noticed Artie's bag at his feet. "Ok Artie." She paused a second before asking, "Artie, are you ok? That thing yesterday with McPherson…well you seemed almost as upset as I was."

Artie slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, no doubt to caress the pocket watch. "I'll be fine, Myka. I lost James a long time ago. It just took me by surprise, that hologram. Some things never do quite stop hurting, but you get through it and it eventually hurts less. There are just things that set it to hurting again."

Myka looked at the older man sympathetically. She wanted to hug him, but didn't think Artie would take too kindly to the gesture. Instead she settled for patting his arm gently.

"It does get better Myka." He looked her in the eyes.

"I know Artie. Sometimes it's just a little hard to see that in the heat of the moment, especially when you have hope of being able to bring them back."

Artie nodded. "Get to packing. We don't want to miss our train," he said gruffly before picking up his bag and walking down the stairs towards the lobby.

Myka stared after him. She couldn't decide if telling him now was going to be easier or harder after that little speech. She shut her door slowly and went back to packing.

* * *

A few minutes later she was down in the lobby waiting for Pete with Artie. Nervous butterflies filled her stomach. She was sure she would feel this way around Artie until she managed to bring herself to tell him about the dreams. She hated not being completely in control.

She pursed her lips. Perhaps there was something she could do to make everything go more smoothly. Maybe she could research the pen without Artie's help and then bring him the results of her search. If she found some sort of proof that what she was saying was true, they couldn't think her crazy. Crazier things happened on a daily basis at the Warehouse. If only she hadn't broken down so many times before they might believe her without all the research.

Her teeth worried her lip. It didn't matter now. She would be back at the B&B soon enough with what was left of the Warehouse records. Everything would work out soon enough.

She hoped.

* * *

The trip back was long, but it didn't quite annoy her as much. There were no crying babies, no fat old men trying to shove a chair in her solar plexus. She hadn't had such a mundane trip in a very long time.

Back home, she set to work immediately. She searched through files and entered what she knew into the Warehouse search engines. Thank god Claudia had been working on restoring what had been lost in the Warehouse explosion and thank god for the backup files too. She didn't know what she would have done without everything. It was hard enough finding what she wanted with them.

She didn't know who owned the pen, she didn't quite know what it did other than it had something to do with transferring people between universes. She wasn't sure what exactly what else it did, whether the dreams were actually part of how the artifact worked or if they were just something special that she and Helena brought to the table. The only thing she was absolutely sure of was that it was a pen, owned by some physics professor.

She weeded through hundreds of entries, reading them, discarding them after she hit more than one characteristic that didn't fit. She worked for hours. She felt her eyelids slowly slipping shut. She jerked awake. She couldn't go to sleep yet. She had to find the pen. She had to…

She woke up drooling on the files. Myka sat bolt upright. Oh god, she had fallen asleep. A paper stuck to her face. She pulled a sheet off that had stuck to her forehead. She sighed. It was yet another that she hadn't read. She ran a hand through her curls. She wasn't going to get much done if she was hungry, tired, and unfocused. She would fix all those things and she would come back.

Her eyes scanned the lines of the paper she had pulled off her face. A few words caught her attention and she started to read closely. She reached the end and jumped up out of her seat.

"Artie!" she shouted running out of the dining room, socked feet almost causing her to slip as she turned towards the living room.

"What Myka?" Artie walked out into the hallway.

Myka skidded to a stop, flailing her arms to balance her. "I found something you need to see." She held out the paper.

Artie took it from her and read it. He looked up at Myka after he was done. "Are you trying to tell me what I think you're trying to tell me?"

"If you think that I'm telling you that I think that the dreams are real, then yes."

"Myka are you sure? Are you sure you aren't just trying too hard to make something out of nothing?"

"Artie, I'm sure." She looked him dead in the eye, challenging him not to believe her.

"Myka…" he said softly.

"No Artie, don't Myka me. I know it wasn't a dream. I was almost convinced it was, almost, but I know it's real now. And it's not because I found that paper, no I believed before that. Artie, you know those things that no matter what happens you believe are true? This is one of them. What can it hurt to try and follow this? If nothing else we have a potentially dangerous artifact out of the way."

Artie scowled. "I suppose. You said at one point it was making college students disappear. That's worth preventing. Fine. Go. Go to, Stanford was it? And take Pete with you. Bring back Edward Witten's pen and we'll go from there."

Myka nodded and turned to go back. Artie's phone went off, playing "I'm Sexy and I Know It." Claudia had set the ringtone and Artie had yet to figure out how to change it back. It seemed that the techie had erased all the menu options that would've led to the screen to change it.

Myka kept walking, grinning.

She heard Artie flip open his phone and read the text message. "Myka," he called out just as she hit the stairs.

She turned. "What Artie?"

"Don't take Pete. There's been a ping in London at a gentlemen's club. It's a job for two. Take Claudia instead. And keep an eye on her. She's in enough trouble as it is." Artie's face grew darker.

"What? When did Claudia get in trouble?"

"While we were in France. She decided to take the metronome and bring Steve back to life, against orders. Pete's mother intervened, but ended up allowing it without the consent of the other regents. Needless to say both of them are on short leashes for the time being. I don't want the regents to think something more drastic must be done. This needs to be a clean snag, bag, and tag for her. Can you handle that?"

"Yes, Artie. It'll be fine. I know exactly what we're looking for and exactly where it is. We'll be back here by this time tomorrow."

Artie nodded. "Good." He turned toward the living room and called for Pete. Myka was dismissed.

She climbed the stairs and knocked on Claudia's door.

"What Artie? Come to yell at me again? I'm still not sorry, you know. I SAVED Jinxy's life. Why should I be sorry about that?"

"It's not Artie. It's Myka."

She heard the girl jump off her bed and walk towards the door. The red head opened the door a second later. "Oh, hey Myka. Sorry, Old Man Grump has been a little more of a grump than usual."

"So I've heard. I seemed to have missed everything until just now."

Claudia nodded. "You were doing research during most of it and sleeping the rest. What were you looking so hard for? I don't think the Warehouse blowing up all over again could've distracted you."

"It's what we're going after now. Get packed, we're going to Stanford."

Claudia arched an eyebrow. "McGrumpy Pants said no more field work for me until the end of time or until all the inventory for the whole Warehouse is done once it's back, whatever comes first."

"Yeah, well he needed Pete for a mission in London and I'm not so sure he trusts me to go alone right now, so you get to go with me."

"But why doesn't he trust you? I mean out of all of us you're probably the most capable of going it alone. You're Myka."

"It's a long story Claud. I'll tell you on the way. Get packed."

Claudia nodded and stepped back inside her room.

* * *

Myka walked to her own room and grabbed up her still packed bag. She had thrown it in her room upon arriving before immediately setting to work in the dining room. She withdrew the dirty clothes from inside and quickly repacked fresh new ones. In less than five minutes she was back downstairs awaiting the younger agent. Myka paced the hall. She supposed she should be used to waiting for everyone else. It seemed to happen to her perpetually. Still, it didn't make her any less fidgety.

Claudia thumped down the stairs a few minutes later. "Ready?" she asked.

Myka nodded and headed towards the door. Once settled into the car and on their way Myka decided to ask a question that had tugged at her mind since Artie had told her Steve had been resurrected.

"So where is Steve? I mean I know I was pretty concentrated on those files, but I think even I would've noticed a dead man walking around the house."

Claudia winced. "He's with the Regents. They're making sure the artifact didn't affect him in some horrible way. They want to make sure they don't have another Marcus walking around the Warehouse freely, or so they said." She shrugged. "For all I know they could be stringing him up by his toes or something. The only reason I'm not trying to break him out at this very instant is because Jinxy asked me to let them do their job. I couldn't exactly deny him anything he wanted after everything, you know?"

Myka glanced over at the younger agent. Claudia's eyes stared blankly out the window, her hands clasped so hard they were white. Myka reached out with her free hand and settled it atop the other agents. She squeezed gently.

Oh, she knew alright. She knew everything the girl was going through first hand. Stopping at nothing to get the person they loved back. It may have been different types of love, but it was there and it was strong. The strongest driving force a person could ever experience.

"It's ok, Claud. He'll be back. Everything is going to be ok."

She felt Claudia's hands relax slightly under hers.

"Thanks Myka."

They rode a while in silence. Myka eventually had to remove her hand to navigate a particularly sharp turn, but she felt that the red head had gotten the point. Myka was there for her. She understood.

"Why wouldn't Artie trust you to go out on your own?" Claudia asked quietly.

Myka swallowed. She figured this would follow. "I think he believes I'm not far away from a psychotic break."

Claudia whipped her head around to stare at Myka. "What? I know a little something about crazy, and you're nowhere near it."

Myka smiled slightly. "I'm not sure you would say that if you had been with us in France or even with us at the Warehouse when it blew. Trust me, I understand where he's coming from and while it's frustrating, it's deserved. I think he's only trying to protect me."

"Wait, what happened?"

She sighed and launched into the story, telling Claudia everything, not just the bare minimum Artie had gotten. From the time she had woken from that final dream of the Warehouse blowing up until she had gotten back to the B&B from France. Well, she did leave out a few key parts about the dreams, but mostly everything. She felt better getting it all off her chest.

Claudia stayed silent through the whole thing, nodding to show she was still listening, until Myka was done. Her face had stayed blank throughout the story, worrying Myka a little, but she had kept on talking anyway. Once she started she found that she couldn't stop.

When she was done Claudia spoke up after a few seconds of silence. "So you love H.G.?"

"I do. A lot. It's almost scary how much."

Claudia nodded. "Then let's go get that pen so you two can be together."

Myka smiled warmly at the younger agent. "Thanks, Claud."

Claudia returned the smile. "No problem." She snorted. "I guess I do win the bet with Pete."

"Bet?" It was Myka's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Pete and I made a bet a year or so back when H.G. first started showing up on whether you two would end up together. Pete said no way. I said you guys would. I guess I was right, even if I'm not right in this universe."

Myka glared at Claudia, but her heart wasn't in it and it had no real threat. "Of course there would be a bet about that." Myka laughed. "You two." She shook her head.

"What? I'll split the profits with you fifty-fifty."

Myka shook her head. "No, enjoy your spoils, if you can get Pete to fork over the money. He probably figured that if he was wrong at least he'd get to watch two women making out to make up for it."

Claudia grinned. "Probably. And I have my ways of getting my money. I'll stop stocking the Pete cave with cream soda. Provided we ever get the Pete cave and the Warehouse back, anyway."

"We will Claud, we will."

An expression that Myka couldn't quite read flashed across Claudia's face. It was gone before she could really understand it.

"Yeah, we will."

* * *

They rode the rest of the way to airport in companionable silence. The flight was uneventful as well. Myka dosed off for a few minutes, but wasn't rewarded with a dream with Helena. Both of them probably had to be asleep, at least for the ones where they were both in that in between world.

Myka remembered the first dream she had with Helena in it, being that odd disembodied voice as Helena had barreled down the road in her SUV crying. She had never discussed that dream with Helena. As far as she knew the author still thought that dream a figment of her grieving imagination. Perhaps that had been why she had been drawn to Helena even though she hadn't been asleep. Maybe her intense emotional state had drawn her consciousness across the gap of universes. It all sounded incredibly cheesy, incredibly romantic, and incredibly just like a normal day at the Warehouse.

They arrived in San Francisco and wasted no time driving to Stanford. This time Myka didn't have to drive a dinky little car. She got the SUV that she wanted. Yet, she sort of missed the Mini Cooper, if only for the laughter it had provided Helena.

They walked onto Stanford's campus, and straight to the Physics lecture hall. Myka flashed her badge to the professor who was in the middle of lecture. While the professor was distracted Claudia slipped over to the drawer and looked for the pen Myka had described. She dug around quickly, but didn't see the one she was looking for. After a few more seconds of looking, she stopped looking.

Claudia tapped Myka on the shoulder. When Myka turned to look at her she shook her head. Myka scowled.

"Excuse me professor, my partner Miss Donovan will continue questioning you about the physics students believed to have a terrorist plot against the president."

She felt more than saw Claudia's 'what the hell look,' but she disregarded it. The girl was creative. She'd figure out something.

Myka rushed over to the drawer and scrabbled through it. The pen wasn't there. It. Wasn't. There. Where the hell was it? She ran her hand through the drawer again. Fuck.

She walked back over to Claudia who was enlightening the professor on just how students could take the lessons he taught and apply them to terrorist plots. The professor looked sufficiently horrified. Myka stopped Claudia's little spiel midway through a sentence.

"Miss Donovan I take it you've gotten all the useful information you can out of this fine educator?"

Claudia nodded. "I have."

"Good. We'll be going now professor. If we have any more questions we'll come to you. Hopefully, not in the middle of lecture next time. We're dreadfully sorry about that, but you know the life of Secret Service agent waits for no man."

With that Myka and Claudia swept from the room. Once the door was closed behind them Claudia turned to her.

"Physics student terrorist plot? That's what you came up with?" Claudia shook her head. "I take it that Pete does most of the lying when you guys are on missions."

"What? I thought it was perfectly valid."

Claudia stared at her. "Right. Anyway, did you find the pen?"

Myka shook her head. "No. It wasn't there. I don't know where else it could be." She bit her lip hard.

Claudia pursed her lips. "You said you knew whose pen it was right?"

Myka nodded. "Edward Witten's, why?"

"Well that gives us some place to start searching, doesn't it? We aren't going back to the Warehouse without that pen."


End file.
